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Heroes of the Campus 

The Records of a Few of Those 
Knightly Souls Who, Burning Out 
for God, Kindled Unquenched Fires 
in the Lives of Their Fellow Students 



JOSEPH W. COCHR/N 




Philadelphia 

The Westminster Press 

1917 



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Copyright, 191 7, 
By F. M. Braselmann 



©CLA5 12999 

APR -9 1919 



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To 
MY MOTHER 



I want a hero — well, that wish is wise, 
Who hath do hero lives not near to God ; 

For heroes are the steps by which we rise 
To reach the hand that lifts us from the sod. 

— James Blackie. 



What are those lovely ones, yea, what are these ? 

Lo, these are they who for pure love of Christ 

Cast off the trammels of soft silken ease, 

Beggaring themselves betimes, to be sufficed 

Throughout heaven's one eternal day of peace : 

By golden streets, thro' gates of pearl unpriced, 

They entered on the joys that will not cease, 

And found again all first fruits sacrificed. 

And wherefore have you harps, and wherefore palms, 

And wherefore crowns, O ye who walk in white? 

Because our happy hearts are chanting psalms, 

Endless Te Deum for the ended fight, 

W T hile thro' the everlasting lapse of calms 

We cast our crowns before the Lamb our Might. 

— Christina Bossetti. 



1*1 



Contents 

PAGE 

A Word at the Beginning . . ix 

I. Horace Tracy Pitkin, of Yale . i 

A Blood Witness of the Truth. 

II. Pitt Gordon Knowlton, of Oberlin 17 

The Poor Student Who Made Others Rich. 

III. Kin Takahashi, of Maryville . . 27 

A Japanese Battering-Ram for God. 

IV. Arthur Frame Jackson, of Cam- 

bridge 37 

" Whose Life Was in the Saving of the 
Worlds 

V. Hugh McAllister Beaver, of Penn- 
sylvania State College . . 53 

The Boy Who Could See the Master's Face. 

VI. Isabella Marion Vosburgh, of 

Mount Holyoke .... 69 

How One Girl Became Human' Radium. 

VII. Forbes Robinson, of Cambridge . 81 

Champion of the Average Man. 

VIII. William Whiting Borden, of Yale 91 

The Man with a Million for the Kingdom. 
[vii] 



CONTENTS 



IX. Ion Keith Falconer, of Cambridge ioi 
A Burning and a Shining Light. 

X. Samuel John Mills, of Williams . 1 1 1 

Who Made a Haystack Famous. 

XL Elijah Kellogg, of Bowdoin . .129 

The College Man Who Was a Boy at Eighty. 

XII. David Yonan, of Davidson . . 143 
"Greater Love Hath No Man Than This" 

XIII. Horace William Rose, of Beloit . 153 

Winner of Men to Christ. 

Bibliography . . . . .168 






[ viii ] 



A Word at the Beginning 

Doubtless lives as heroic as any of those sketched 
iu this little volume could be found in the college 
world to-day, bringing fresh enthusiasms to bear in 
behalf of the Kingdom of God. There are warrior 
souls now fighting their good fight in every part of 
the world. But the average college student does not 
realize how much of a good soldier he can become 
before he leaves his Alma Mater. The u generation 
•of wings," as the French say, when speaking of the 
new France, is begotten behind the first line of 
attack. 

It is in the hope that many a student will realize 
the big opportunities of his campus life in terms of 
service and sacrifice that these sketches of brief but 
glorious lives are presented. That quality of pre- 
paredness which alone can save our age from colossal 
spiritual failure is the task of the modern college. 
The tragedy of college life is the temptation to push 
life ahead into the future and then — never to reach it. 

The lives of Pitt Gordon Knowlton, Kin Taka- 
hashi, Isabella Marion Vosburgh, and David Yonan 
are here for the first time put into print. They are 
worthy of fuller treatment. For those who desire 
to read more widely, a partial bibliography of 
" Heroes of the Campus " is found at the close of 
this volume. 

J. W. C. 

February i, 1917. 

[ix] 



Horace Tracy Pitkin, of Yale 
A Blood Witness of the Truth 



Courage is but a word, and yet, of words, 
The only sentinel of permanence ; 
The ruddy watch fire of cold winter days, 
We steal its comfort, lift our weary swords, 
And on. For faith — without it — has no sense ; 
And love to wind of doubt and tremor sways ; 
And life for ever quaking marsh must tread. 

Laws give it not, before it prayer will blush, 
Hope has it not, nor pride of being true. 
'Tis the mysterious soul which never yields, 
But hales us on and on to breast the rush 
Of all the fortunes we shall happen through. 
And when Death calls across his shadowy fields — 
Dying, it answers : " Here ! I am not dead ! " 

— John Galsworthy. 



HORACE TRACY PITKIN, OF YALE 

A Blood Witness of the Truth 

u Name one man pushing Christian work hard in 
college, who has the undivided respect and admira- 
tion of the fellows — an all-round leader in college 
activities," demanded a freshman of his father, 
when the latter urged him to " get into the game " 
and become a positive religious force in college. 
Like many another man he was pushing life ahead 
of him. " I tell you there are no such inen, M the 
freshman declared with vehemence. 

A sufficient answer to this not uncommon atti- 
tude is the life and work of Horace Tracy Pitkin, 
known throughout the world as one of the twenty- 
six missionaries who gave up their lives and won 
the martyr crown in the Boxer outrages at Pao- 
ting-fu, China, in 1900. His glorious death, fruit- 
ful as it has been in scattering broadcast the seed of 
the Church, has no deeper value than the task he 
accomplished while preparing for the work from 
which he was so suddenly summoned by the Mas- 
ter's call. Horace Pitkin had finished a man's job 
before he ever set foot on the soil that received his 
last glad offering. 

George Sherwood Eddy says of Pitkin: " Even 
[3] ' 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



in freshman year he did not postpone his life. He 
lived then." Another Yale man said of him : " It 
all comes as a revelation to me of what college 
Christianity may be. Something of the unbounded 
admiration and reverence that the average freshman 
has for the captain of the varsity football team, I 
had for him ; something of the same pride at having 
him walk across the campus with me, or invite me 
to his room." 

As the track men say, Pitkin made u a good get- 
away. " This fact is referred to by a classmate in 
these words : u Not a few men make shipwreck of 
their college Christian life, or at least make it null 
and void of power just because they wait to see how 
things go religiously in college, not realizing that 
the position one takes the first few weeks will, in 
the majority of cases, determine the religious trend 
of one's whole life. Not so Pitkin. Through all 
his course from first to last his fellow students 
knew where he stood." 

It is worth while knowing that good blood flowed 
in the veins of this man. His paternal ancestry 
ran back through distinguished American patriots. 
One of these was governor of Connecticut, and 
William Pitkin, the founder of the American fam- 
ily, who came to New England from London in 
1659, became attorney-general of the colony but five 
years later. 

On his mother's side Pitkin was a lineal descend- 
ant of Elihu Yale. His grandfather was Eev. Cyrus 
Yale, of New Hartford, Connecticut. In 1860 
Horace W. Pitkin married Lucy Tracy Yale at the 

[4] 



HORACE TRACY PITKIN 



old homestead in New Hartford. The following 
year they settled in Philadelphia, from which city 
Mr. Pitkin conducted a chain of merchandizing 
houses which supplied soldiers' equipment along 
the border between the North and the South. 

The only son of the family was born in 1869. 
When he was eleven years old, his mother died and 
his father assumed charge of the training of young 
Horace. Mr. Pitkin, who was of a strong religious 
nature, gave much attention to his son's early edu- 
cation, putting him in touch with the best influ- 
ences. A constant stream of splendid Christian 
men passed through the Pitkin home. Everyone 
w T ho could strengthen the family ideals was made a 
welcome guest. Mr. Pitkin was accustomed to spend 
Sunday afternoon in visiting those who were sick 
and in prison, and otherwise magnified his duties as 
a ruling elder of the Second Presbyterian Church 
of Philadelphia. His open-hearted hospitality and 
great liberality were conspicuous traits that freely 
descended from father to son. 

From early boyhood Horace spent his summer 
vacations on the old Yale homestead in Connecticut 
where his fresh and vigorous life is remembered 
with great affection. Every day he used to with- 
draw for an hour or two of Bible study, sitting 
under a great ash tree with the Scriptures on his 
lap, looking off to the blue hills in deep meditation 
upon the mighty things of God. His study com- 
pleted, he would bound back with radiant face to 
the groups of friends on the lawn and the tennis 
court, ready for any manner of work or frolic. 

[5] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



His academic work was taken at Phillips Acad- 
emy, Exeter, New Hampshire. Upon entering 
school away from home he sought the best influ- 
ences. The worthy attractions of schoolboy life, 
not its temptations, were his. He faced questions 
of right and wrong with absolute fearlessness. Al- 
though possessed of ample means he had no desire 
to squander money on personal indulgences. Money 
was to him a trust and, even as a boy, he contributed 
to charities with better insight and judgment than 
did many of his elders. 

As a young Christian, there was nothing of the 
prig or snob about Horace Pitkin. His artless 
simplicity, boyish gayety, and love of clean sport 
instantly disarmed the suspicion that he was posing 
as a saint. He despised cant and had no use for 
sanctimony. On the other hand he did not hesitate 
to go in for everything that gave a religious tone to 
student activities, taking a leading part in all the 
Christian activities of the academy and the near-by 
church. Skilled in music, playing both piano and 
organ, and possessed of a fine tenor voice, "Pitt," 
as he was nicknamed, was in constant demand for 
meetings of all kinds. He was ready to do any- 
thing helpful and put everything through with 
astonishing thoroughness and rapidity. He early 
developed a mastery of detail and was businesslike 
in all his dealings. Referring to his efficiency 
the boys used to say with a rough pun, "If any- 
body kin, Pit-kin. " While at Phillips Academy, 
he united with the Church, actively associating 
himself with the Christian Endeavor Society and 

[6] 



HORACE TRACY PITKIN 



taking a lead in its vital work. One of the earliest 
antisaloon movements in the village was started by 
him. u No picture comes to me more vividly," 
writes one, "than that of a great gathering filling 
the large church, with Pitkin as chairman, presid- 
ing with the dignity of a senator." 

His scholarship and athletic records did not suffer 
by reason of his intense application to the spiritual 
side of student life. Even in the academy he had 
become an all-round man. When he entered Yale 
in the fall of 1888 he was an upstanding, clear-eyed, 
energetic freshman, with a sensitive mouth and a 
strong, lithe movement of the body which betokened 
perfect physical and mental coordination. In col- 
lege he found plenty of outlet for an intensely active 
spiritual nature. He did not wait until some one 
dropped work into his lap. " Never have I known 
anyone with such power of translating faith into 
action. With him to believe was to do," said his 
roommate. He began to speak in the class prayer 
meetings and soon he was known as one of the best 
speakers, for, added to natural oratorical ability, was 
the flaming love of God burning in his heart. He 
became organist of the class prayer meetings and 
could always be counted on to lead in the singing. 

For two years Horace Pitkin was superintendent 
of the Bethany Sunday School. He improved the 
organization of the school, bettered the discipline, 
and put through a comprehensive canvass of the 
neighborhood. Sunday afternoons he would be 
found at Grand Avenue Mission where evangelistic 
services were held. He liked to plead with lost 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



men and his affection for them, despite rags and 
filth, did more than anything else to make non- 
Christian college men believe in him. Charles 
Sumner once admitted that he was more interested 
in the cause of abolition than in the particular fugi- 
tive slave whose needs were presented to him. But 
this college man felt that his interest in " the cause " 
must needs be tested by his love for the individual. 
Writes a fellow student : " I recall one instance when 
we had induced a poor fellow to brace up and let 
liquor alone and try to be a man again. He came 
on the campus and Horace put him in his room on 
the wiudow seat a few nights. Then he gave him 
five dollars to buy some better clothes and try for a 
job." 

But it was the cause of foreign missions that, aside 
from his studies, occupied most of his time and 
thought. During his first vacation he went with 
the Yale delegation to the college conference at 
Northfield. It was at this conference that his life 
work was clearly presented to him and he joyfully 
accepted the declaration of the Student Volunteer 
Movement. In the official organ of the movement, 
Pitkin told of his decision to become a missionary : 

"I had just finished my freshman year at Yale. 
Of course I had no conception of the great advan- 
tages of an early decision which confront the student 
of to-day. . . . My ideas of mission work were 
very vague and, which was quite worse, no organiza- 
tion, such as now exists, stood ready with pamphlets, 
books, and study classes, to guide and fortify rue." 

In the fall the new recruit returned to college, 
[8] 



HORACE TRACY PITKIN 



fired with the purpose to make Yale a great mis- 
sionary center. There was no volunteer band at 
that time, but with fiery zeal and fine organizing 
ability Pitkin started a work that gathered mo- 
mentum with every passing month. Mission study 
classes were formed and student bands went out to 
churches and societies to speak in behalf of for- 
eign missions. Many counties were thus covered. 
" Thanks be to God," said the young enthusiast, 
" he did use the decision so that in my senior year 
Yale had, instead of one volunteer besides myself, a 
band of twenty-four." 

At college Pitkin left a remarkable record of 
achievement. Largely through his efforts Yale be- 
came a missionary college, and her Yale Band of 
foreign missionaries is known throughout Chris- 
tendom. Christian Endeavor societies all over the 
State of Connecticut were swung into line for mis- 
sions and dozens of mission libraries were estab- 
lished. Pitkin raised upwards of five thousand 
dollars for the American Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions, himself assuming one third of the support of 
a missionary in China. 

Upon entering upon his theological course at 
Union Seminary in New York City, he at once de- 
veloped a plan of missionary propagandism. At 
the end of his first term he wrote : 

"Have you heard of our mission revival of this 
term? It was largely a work of God and to him 
be all the praise and glory. It was simply the fact 
of a volunteer's dying in our class that brought the 
fellows together and broke the ice. The evening 

[9] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



after his death we held a class prayer meeting which 
was led by Eddy, who had just signed. Of course 
he led it in the direction of missions and one after 
another got up and stated his personal reasons for 
and against. Every man in the class was ap- 
proached and talked to as the Master led us, and 
we had daily prayer meetings and a list of men to 
pray for each day. At the end of the week we had 
scratched off four and they were with us praying 
for the rest." 

Mr. Luce and Mr. Eddy were his colleagues in 
this revival. The former says : 

u The influence of Pitkin's example had its work, 
but we always felt his prayers had a greater part. 
We shall never know the part that his prayer 
played in all this or the greatness of his joy when 
these two old friends (Luce and Eddy) were led to 
purpose, if God permit, to go to the foreign field. 
From that day forth the prayer of the three men 
was like that of one man." 

Mr. Eddy adds this testimonial : 

" Pitkin's life was to me the unanswerable proof 
that God could guide, and an example of the possi- 
bilities of service open to anyone who knew God's 
will. I remember the night I went up to Pitkin's 
room and told him I felt that I must know God's 
will for my life. After prayer together, I went to 
my own room and, without excitement or very much 
emotion, I waited quietly and asked God to guide 
me surely and unmistakably. He did. The simple 
conviction came that it was his will to go. And 
from that moment no shadow of a doubt ever came." 

[10] 






HORACE TRACY PITKIN 



These three men, like those iu the fiery furnace 
of Babylon, were feeling the power that comes 
through u stringing one's life to one great pur- 
pose. n Even keeping the body fit and strong was 
to them part of the great task and in gymnasium 
practice their thought was this : " We must put on 
muscle for Christ. This will carry the gospel many 
a mile." 

In 1894 the triumvirate of volunteers accepted the 
call of the Student Volunteer Movement to travel 
through the colleges of North America. Pitkin 
was assigned to the Middle West and accomplished 
a notable work. He organized a number of volun- 
teer bands and unified the work with businesslike 
ability. The spiritual side was, however, upper- 
most in all his plans. He had a prayer list of the 
"back track' ' as he called it, that is, the institu- 
tions and men he had already visited. His prac- 
tical, common-sense methods, united with a burn- 
ing zeal and an implicit faith, made him a master in 
the field. D. Willard Lyon said of him, " He could 
translate his visions into practical lines of action." 

Pitkin graduated from the seminary in the spring 
of 1896. The following October he was married to 
Miss L. E. Thomas, of Troy, Ohio, a graduate of 
Mount Holyoke College and leader of its glee club 
in 1895. The two young missionaries started for 
China the following month, under appointment 
from the American Board of Foreign Missions, 
spending six months visiting mission stations en 
route. In the fall of 1897 they found themselves at 
Pao-ting-fu, eighty-eight miles south of Peking. 

[11] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



For two years Pitkin wrestled with the language 
and toured the surrounding districts with older mis- 
sionaries, writing long and interesting accounts of his 
work to the home church and to friends. In a let- 
ter written early in 1900 he referred to the gather- 
ing of the Boxer cloud which was soon to break 
upon China and overwhelm the devoted little band 
of missionaries at Pao-ting-fu : 

" China is full of secret societies. . . . They 
attack missionaries and converts, the result of the 
hated i foreign devil's' religion. Not daring to at- 
tack the missionary, perhaps, they wreak vengeance 
on his converts. Such was the massacre of the Eng- 
lish missionaries on or near the coast in the south 
some years ago, such was the great revolution of 
Yang Tse Kiang before that time, and such is the 
cause of the widespread troubles near here to-day. 
. . . Societies are being formed within twenty- 
five miles of us to the south, and encircling the city 
the plague has spread to the north of us. . . . 
Eeport had it that our compound and the Presby- 
terian compound were to be wiped out the eighth 
or eighteenth of this month. To-day is the ninth, 
so I guess we shall survive the eighteenth as well." 

In a letter to Yale men written April 27, 1900, he 
told of sending Mrs. Pitkin and little Horace to 
America : 

" Now the house is immense and I do not like it 
one bit, but don't you care, think of the poor 
* celebrates ' who do not have seven months hence to 
look forward to. . . . Dr. Hodge of Philadel- 
phia and Mrs. Hodge (nSe Sinclair) will be right next 

[12] 



HORACE TRACY PITKIN 



door ... so we shall have a merry party. ' ' His 
last letter to the Pilgrim Church of Cleveland, which 
had adopted the Pitkins as their representatives on 
the foreign field, explained why Mrs. Pitkin re- 
turned, and added : u Won't it make China seem 
near to you ! and America to us ? There is only one 
objection to it, it will take away from our heads the 
haios that some of you have insisted upon placing 
there, and you will be disappointed in finding us 
just like common folks. *Huh! Nothing par- 
ticularly like martyrdom in this foreign work,' and 
you are right ! We have been trying to tell you 
that right along — because we do not believe in 
martyrs either." 

The storm increased in fury. In his last letter, 
written June 2, 1900, to associates in Peking, and 
carried by a Chinese runner, who succeeded in pass- 
ing the Boxer lines, he described scenes of pillage 
and massacre : 

" It may be the beginning of the end. God rules 
and somehow his Kingdom must be brought about 
in China. . . . It is a grand cause to die in, 
. . . Jesus shall reign . . . but we do hope 
a long life may be for us in this work. The moon 
gets brighter every night and — what then? God 
leads, thank God he does ! We cannot go out to 
fight— we must sit still at our work and take quietly 
whatever is sent us." 

On the afternoon of June 30 a mob set fire to the 
American Presbyterian Mission, looted the hospital 
and chapel, burned the houses of the missionaries, 
and inaugurated a general massacre of the mission* 

[13] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



aries and native Christians. Horace Pitkin wrote 
his final letters, prayed with a faithful manservant 
and left him one parting word, " Tell the mother of 
little Horace to tell Horace that his father's last 
wish was that when he is twenty-five years of age, 
he should come to China as a missionary." 

Mr. Pitkin endeavored to save the lives of Miss 
Morrell and Miss Gould, holding the crowd at bay 
until his ammunition was exhausted. Then he and 
the two missionary women suffered death by the 
sword, the head of Mr. Pitkin being severed from 
his body. 

Lao-man, the old letter carrier and servant, tells 
how Mr. Pitkin urged the aged man to escape over 
the wall and seek a hiding place. He says : 

" I was a long time with Pastor Pitkin. He was 
composed and calm. He told me of some things the 
schoolboys had buried, hoping to save them, and 
then took out a letter he had just written to Pi Tai 
Tai, and his camera, and said : l You go with me 
and we will bury these things in the ground under 
the dovecote, so when all is over you will know 
where to find them. Send or take them to the 
soldiers from the west, or whoever comes with them, 
so that my wife may be sure to receive them.' We 
went out, dug quite a deep hole and put them care- 
fully in, wrapped in waterproof covers. Then we 
went back to the pastor's room and talked till after 
midnight. We knew little of the fate of the 
Presbyterian friends, but were sure that none were 
living. At last, Mr. Pitkin said, l Do not risk your 
life any longer, but get over the wall in some place 

[14] 



HORACE TRACY PITKIN 



as retired as may be and get into hiding before 
dawn. My letter may be found and destroyed. If 
you learn that it is, send word to Pi Tai Tai that 
God was with me and his peace was my consola- 
tion.' Then we knelt down and prayed together 
and he sent me away." 

Between the ruins of the two mission compounds 
a plot of ground was purchased and there twenty- 
six coffins were lowered into the graves while a little 
band of Christians sang in Chinese : 

11 Light after darkness, gain after loss, 
Strength after weakness, crown after cross. ' ' 

Surely the greatest memorial of such a life is not 
found in tablets, or biographies, or even in hospital 
or mission buildings. It is in the lives of God's 
children who catch the spirit of sacrifice and leap at 
the call of Christ to engage in that service for which 
Horace Pitkin and hundreds of others have laid 
down their lives. 

What is your answer to such a life ? Have you 
accepted the challenge of this modern martyr ? 

11 What is the issue to be ? What legacy, say, to your children 
Will you bequeath ? What increment added ? What fur- 
ther example 
Yet of noble deeds, what self crucifixion in laying 
All that you have, that you are, at the feet of a crucified 
Saviour ? ' ' 



[15] 



II 

Pitt Gordon Knowlton, of Oberlin 

The Poor Sttident Who Made Others Rich 



I will stretch 
My hands out once again. And, as the God 
That made me is the Heart within my heart, 
So shall my heart be to this dust and earth 
A god and a creator. I will strive 
With mountains, fires and seas, wrestle and strive, 
Fashion and make, and that which I have made 
In anguish I shall love as God loves me. 

— Noyes. 



II 

PITT GORDON KNOWLTON, OF OBERLIN 

The Poor Student Who Made Others Rich 

A struggling college, situated educationally on 
"the far-flung battle line," was facing its darkest 
hour. The trustees were contemplating closing its 
doors on account of lack of funds. The teachers' 
salaries had not been paid for months. Only the 
bravest souls could endure such an ordeal. " The 
paths of glory lead but to the grave. " Yes, but this 
was different. It was living — living without the 
means of living, and without the glory. 

It was then that Pitt Gordon Knowlton, who had 
built up the departments of philosophy and educa- 
tion at Fargo College, an A. B. of Oberlin, A. M. 
of Harvard, and Ph. D. of Leipsig, saw his way out 
of a situation fraught, for himself and for his family, 
with such distressing features. He received a call 
to return to his Alma Mater where, as a student, he 
had so distinguished himself. Was not all the past, 
with its heavy drainage of life forces in overcoming 
an untoward environment, a fit preparation for the 
reward now placed in his hands'? Why tempt 
Providence by a sentimental refusal of the larger 
and more comfortable place? Let a younger man 
take his post and endure hardness as he had done. 

[19] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



Is there not a limit to sacrifice, a point where it 
becomes foolhardiness ? 

We may imagine a tall, spare man, big-boned 
but stoop-shouldered, with a kindly eye, broad fore- 
head, and mobile mouth half hidden beneath a 
heavy black beard, wearily resting his head on his 
hand as he sits at his desk thinking out this prac- 
tical problem in ethics. Memory must have re- 
verted to the days when he, a motherless, neglected 
farmer's boy, grubbed out the stumps and rocks on 
a little farm in northeastern Ohio, in return for 
lodging, shirt, and overalls. He must have thought 
of all the years of uphill climbing from the day 
New Lyme Institute opened its doors until the great 
German university invested him with the insignia 
of the doctorate of philosophy. Finally, he could 
not forbear the reflection that the effort to put the 
small Christian college on its feet, academically and 
financially, had cost him much of physical vigor and 
intellectual toil. Had he not paid the full price of 
his ideals ! 

No ! A thousand times, no ! Watch those black 
eyes snap and the jaw set as though the tempter of 
souls were whispering in his ear. He will not de- 
sert Fargo College. He will lay down his life, if 
need be, rather than see it close its doors. 

The next mail bore a courteous reply to Oberlin 
decliniug the honor of an appointment to its faculty. 
That quiet renunciation meant new life to hundreds 
of the rising generation of students, but it took life 
also. Knowlton paid the price. 

Pitt Gordon Knowltou was born at Eock Creek, 
[20] 



PITT GORDON KNOWLTON 



Ohio, November 30, 1859. His father worked a 
small farm in one of the townships of northeastern 
Ohio, wresting a meager living from the poor soil 
of that region. When Pitt was still a small boy, 
his mother died, and after that home life was what 
a hard-working farmer and his two boys .could 
bring into it. Poverty and hardship were Pitt's 
bedfellows ; the liner things of life were unknown. 
But he was destined to give a course to college 
seniors on "Life as a Practical Problem" and it- 
was here that, as a sad-hearted little farm drudge, 
he was unconsciously collecting material. 

From a home bereft of the ministries of woman- 
hood, and granting only the barest necessities for 
the sternest kind of labor, came this ungainly youth 
of eighteen seeking admittance to the institute at 
South New Lyme. He was an unlikely specimen 
of farmer's boy, but Jacob Tuckerman saw beneath 
the rough exterior a rare nature. This old fash- 
ioned educator was seeking, not to mold character 
as though it were plaster, but to hew it like granite 
from the elemental quarries of life. He found in 
Knowlton the right stuff and he chiseled rather 
than polished. Soon the boy became known as the 
finest scholar in the academy. His opinions in the 
classroom were sound and original and he was 
listened to with respectful attention. His lofty 
moral and religious standards produced a marked 
influence upon the school. 

When the time came for graduation, Dr. Tucker- 
man persuaded Knowlton that a college education 
was possible without ready money. Eealizing the 

[21] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



odds against him, the young man matriculated at 
Oberlin in 1886, and began his fight. He would 
take every sort of odd job he could find, working 
on farms during the summer, coaching poor stu- 
dents, tending furnaces, and the like, until Peters 
Hall was opened. He was there installed as head 
janitor, a post which he filled until graduation. 
One of his fellow students writes : 

" Pitt Knowlton won his laurels at the end of a 
broom. He came to Oberlin a homeless lad, alone 
in the world, his hands hardened and his shoulders 
bowed with toil, but with the love of God and his 
fellow men in his heart, and hungry for learning, 
for friends, and for his Master's work — and he 
found them all. Indomitable grit brought him to 
the doors of the college and carried him through to 
graduation in 1890, working his way not by the 
wiles of the book agent but by the long hours of 
labor and the sweat of his brow. Every man and 
woman in college admired his enterprise and tenac- 
ity of purpose. He enlarged and glorified the work 
of janitor and teacher alike. We were all glad to 
be his friends, forgetful, as he, of his threadbare 
coat, his cotton umbrella, his uncouth manner, and 
strident voice, for behind all there was a loyal soul 
radiating cheer, a veritable fountain of good will." 

The temptation to a student thus forced to make 
his way is to draw within himself and indulge in 
self-pity. But Knowlton betrayed no tinge of 
bitterness, jealousy, or suspicion. He was not only 
unashamed of manual work but gloried in it and 
rose above its supposed handicaps. He was almost 

[22] 



PITT GORDON KNOWLTON 



aggressive in his friendships, by reason of his sense 
of humor and his frank and hearty interest in his 
fellows. They declare him to have been the best- 
known and best- loved man in college, with a circle 
of lasting friendships unsurpassed for their depth 
and permanence. 

President Henry Churchill King has testified to 
his u admiration for the essential fineness and ten- 
derness of his strong nature. He exerted steadily 
a strong influence in the college, was always out- 
spoken for the best things, and could be absolutely 
counted on for loyalty to the best in college life." 

After winning the Walker fellowship for work at 
Harvard, Knowlton spent two years in graduate 
work, receiving his master's degree in 1892. For 
one year thereafter he taught at the Ohio State 
University, then went abroad for a year's work at 
Berlin, completing his thesis on the " Origin and 
Nature of Conscience " for the doctor's degree at the 
University of Leipsig in 1896. 

Oberlin was a sort of big mother of Fargo. Both 
Congregational in their religious affiliations, the two 
colleges have always enjoyed a close interchange of 
ideas. Thus, when Fargo was looking for a dean, 
what more natural than that Oberlin should suggest 
the man of all men who had laid the impress of his 
mind and soul on his Alma Mater during the later 
eighties'? Only seven years from janitor to dean ! 
Think of that, you who imagine it takes money that 
some one else has earned to establish yourselves in 
life and attain a position of recognized standing ! 

There are no dramatic incidents to record of his 
[23] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



sixteen years as teacher in Fargo College, except as 
that life is most truly dramatic which most truly 
lives. Character is essentially romantic, but the 
world wants excitement and noise and passion, 
mistakenly associating these with the dramatic and 
romantic. 

Dr. Knowlton was not a " swashbuckler ' 7 in 
education. He never sought notoriety or courted 
the press. Let other professors make startling state- 
ments to their classes for the sake of attracting the 
public attention, let them write for the magazines 
and give Chautauqua lectures, and attend conven- 
tions as they would ; he had little time for all this. 
He was busy in the laboratory of life. He was a 
handler of precious ore. He kept the temperature 
just right for the refining. He could not afford 
to let his classes "cool" while he ran away for a 
few days on some little commercial aside. He 
stayed with the stuff and made something out of it. 
Often he was known to absent himself from some 
social function only to be found walking with a 
student along the roadside or in the fields. He was 
always seeking light, and he was as happy in find- 
ing a gleam in the mind of a pupil as a searchlight 
in the works of a master. 

This is the reason there is little to tell of those 
sixteen years, for the things he said and did were 
done in quiet places. The surgical operation by 
which the infusion of blood is accomplished, the 
stronger giving his life to the weaker, is a noiseless 
process. Dr. Knowlton, as some one said, "gave 
away more learning than most of us acquire." Yes, 

[24] 



PITT GORDON KNOWLTON 



but the significant words are these : He gave away 
the learning — he did not sell it — and it was sound to 
the core and up-to-date. He was en rapport with 
Bergson and Eucken. His pedagogy was abreast of 
the minute. His bibliography contained the latest 
books on the subject. His classes in philosophy 
were always crowded. It was no unusual sight to 
witness his desk surrounded by a group of interested 
students discussing the question of the hour long 
after the signal for dismissal had been given. Fre- 
quently his lectures were punctuated with applause 
as he made some telling point or illuminated some 
abstruse question with penetrating comment. 

His hope had been to complete a certain manu- 
script on which he had worked for years. But the 
unfinished work is a mute though eloquent monu- 
ment to his self-effacing spirit. While other teach- 
ers have written libraries in ink and paper his list of 
works is incarnated in living epistles known and 
read of all men. In an address before the students 
of the University of North Dakota on " Freedom 
and Independence," Dean Knowlton said, " No 
man can be strong who is not in accord with his 
fellow men and who does not serve them." 

On May 5, 1913, this great soul lay down life's 
burden and entered into rest. " This rough horse- 
play of life," as Stevenson puts it, had so weakened 
his constitution that he fell an easy prey to pneu- 
monia within a few days. 

" He believed in the largest possible self in order 
that he might give the greatest possible service," 
was the keynote of the tribute paid him by Dr. C. C. 

[25] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



Creegan, the president of Fargo College, on the day 
of the funeral. While others may seek, in the 
teaching profession and elsewhere, the mastery of 
others for the sake of self, Pitt Gordon Knowlton 
sought the mastery of self for the sake of others. 
Such a man can never die. 

" It is certainly worth while to live," he once de- 
clared in a remarkable address on " Immortality," 
"as though our souls were an immortal trust. To 
him who asserts the reality of the best and noblest, 
death comes simply as one more great adventure he 
must make, and to that end he sings with Stevenson : 

11 ; This be the verse you grave for me, 
Here he lies where he longed to be. 
Home is the sailor, home from the sea, 
And the hunter home from the bill. * " 



[26] 



Ill 

Kin Takahashi, of Maryville 

A Japanese Battering- Ram for God 



Of wounds and sore defeat 

I made my battle stay ; 

Winged sandals for my feet 

I wove of my delay ; 

Of weariness and fear 

I made my shouting spear ; 

Of loss, and doubt, and dread, 

And swift oncoming doom 

I made a helmet for my head 

And a floating plume. 

From the shutting mist of death, 

From the failure of the breath, 

I made a battle horn to blow 

Across the vales of overthrow. 

O hearken, love, the battle horn ! 

The triumph clear, the silver scorn ! 

O hearken where the echoes bring, 

Down the gray disastrous morn, 

Laughter and rallying ! 

— William Vaughn Bloody. 



Ill 

KIN TAKAHASHI, OF MARYVILLE 

A Japanese Battering -Bam for God 

A small, nervous Japanese in a college dormi- 
tory bends over his study table at midnight, his 
black eyes snapping and his whole beiug intensely 
concentrated upon the task of moving twenty-two 
grains of corn into various positions. Those grains 
of corn represent two football teams and to-morrow 
" Kentucky Hossie," as the boys have dubbed him, 
will be coaching the mountain boys of Maryville 
College in a new gridiron formation. 

Twenty-five years ago Takahashi introduced foot- 
ball into Maryville College. How the undersized 
Japanese taught those surprising and elusive tricks 
merely by the aid of a football manual and his per- 
sonal practice plays with corn grains is still told 
with pride by the loyal sons of Maryville. His 
lightninglike dashes around the ends, puzzling the 
opposing team with his catlike agility, are part of 
the athletic annals of Tennessee. 

Kin Takahashi was born in Yamaguchi in 1872. 
At the age of fourteen he was sent by his father to 
America, in order to learn English and then return 
to his native land for a commercial career. Two 

[29] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



years in the schools of San Francisco whetted his 
appetite for the kind of learning not to be measured 
by commercial standards, for the young Shintoist 
had, meanwhile, found the Way. The burning 
question before him was whether he was to be cut 
off from the help and consideration of his family. 
He sat down and wrote a letter to his parents an- 
nouncing his conversion. The result was a complete 
separation from his family. Both his father and 
mother indignantly denounced him and cut off his 
generous allowance. 

Nothing daunted, Kin sought the counsel of his 
Christian friends. He wanted to know where he 
might go to school and, through his own efforts, 
secure a Christian college education. Mary ville was 
suggested and the lonely Japanese found his way 
into the heart of the Tennessee hills where he was 
warmly received by the president of Mary ville. He 
entered the preparatory course in 1888. He re- 
mained at Maryville for seven years, graduating 
with the degree of A. B. in 1895. 

The career of Takahashi ought to be an encour- 
agement to any poor boy who is fighting to get an 
education, and arouse in many others the desire to 
struggle through with no funds but such as can be 
earned during the course. Every penny of expense 
during those seven years was earned by this young 
man. His capacity for work was almost limitless. 
Whether cooking, waiting on tables, sweeping, 
working on the campus, lecturing, or canvassing, 
Kin Takahashi labored cheerfully and always with 
profit. His courtesy, earnestness, and industry 

[30] 



KIN TAKAHASHI 



won him a place among the people of a strange 
country, significantly proving that alien birth is no 
inherent handicap in this laud of the free. 

As a leader among his fellows he developed re- 
markable qualities almost from the first. President 
Samuel T. Wilson says, " He soon stepped into the 
position of acknowledged and unenvied leader- 
ship." All forms of student activity — scholastic, 
social, literary, athletic, religious — felt the impetus 
of his intense personality and the drive of his 
genius. " He was the center and heart of all the 
college life," writes a friend. Eefusing to specialize 
or narrow his college activities he threw himself 
into every worthy and needy cause with eager 
enthusiasm. Foreigner though he was he dedicated 
his talents and powers to the building up of the 
American college and the improving of the campus 
spirit. He was the soul of loyalty and an incur- 
able " rooter ,? for his Alma Mater. 

Kin Takahashi's^ own problems, prominent 
among which was the insatiable bread and butter 
question, were incidental to the larger issues of 
life. Indeed his personal interests served only to 
show him the way out for other students situated as 
he was. For example, he found that a number of 
students were compelled to leave school every year 
on account of lack of funds. He thereupon or- 
ganized a self-help system and secured a large 
garden plat in an unused portion of the campus 
where he set groups of impoverished students at 
work. Out of this has grown Maryville's admi- 
rable plan of working scholarships wherein a large 

[31] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



percentage of the students earn their college ex- 
penses in whole or in part. 

Takahashi would have become a great captain of 
industry had he lived and entered upon a business 
career. He worked out the plans for the first field 
day at Mary ville, put athletics to the fore in college 
life, founded and edited a magazine called " College 
Days," and, without pretense of leadership, became 
the very soul of the student body. 

But the greatest service he rendered to Mary ville, 
indeed the greatest service ever rendered by any 
student to this institution, was the religious service 
which gave to Mary ville such distinction in Chris- 
tian student initiative. 

The story of how this poor Japanese pushed 
through his project for building the Mary ville 
Young Men's Christian Association building and 
gymnasium reads like a romance. Toward the end 
of his course he became convinced that God wanted 
him to promote a building enterprise. According 
to his usual method he prayed earnestly over the 
matter and then began to "talk it up" among the 
students and faculty. Soon sufficient interest was 
aroused to warrant the organization of the move- 
ment. Subscriptions of money and work, principally 
the latter, began to pour in. Kin Takahashi heaped 
more fuel on the fire and through his senior year 
continued the agitation. On graduating he did not 
leave the institution but stayed on the ground dur- 
ing the summer, building a brick mill and kilns 
and, with the help of other students, burning three 
hundred thousand bricks during the vacation. In 

[32] 



KIN TAKAHASHI 



addition he organized a campaign of publicity, en- 
listing the active support of newspapers throughout 
the state, and contributing further by lectures and 
entertainments at which he was an adept. 

But the work had only begun. Much money was 
yet to be raised. What would the average college 
man think of spending two years of his life, those 
precious years immediately succeeding graduation, 
in raising funds for the housing of the religious in- 
terests of his college? This Oriental, this " alien " 
did it, for his was an enthusiasm for college life that 
did not exhaust itself in cheers and yells and " Now- 
boys-the-good-old-song ! " Without a cent of com- 
pensation he devoted himself to pushing the enter- 
prise upon which he had set his heart. Journeying 
from city to city in the North he pleaded in burning 
words for help for his " boys." At the close of the 
campaign he had secured sufficient funds to build 
Bartlett Hall which stands to-day a monument to 
the zeal of this fiery heart, the little brown man of 
Nippon whose banzai was "For Christ.' 7 

"The college has done so much for me and the 
Christian Church in America has done so much for 
my country, that I, a Japanese, want to do some- 
thing to show my gratitude," he used to say. It 
was a happy day for Kin when the corner stone of 
the Association Building was laid. He chose the 
motto graven thereon : " Christ Our Corner Stone. n 
On that marble slab eight hundred of his fellow 
countrymen in American colleges can, if they will, 
read the only hope of Nippon's rebirth as a nation, 
according to the faith of Kin Takahashi. 

[33] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



As a member of the Student Volunteer Band Kin 
had brought the missionary spirit to a high stand- 
ard and had been the means of turning many faces 
toward the great adventure for Christ in foreign 
lauds. He had been an ardent personal worker in 
the annual evangelistic meeting, and his faith, his 
perseverance, and his contagious enthusiasm had 
marked him as one signally equipped for conspicu- 
ous service in his homeland. 

His work in America had been accomplished. 
Followed by the love and prayers of a host of 
friends he returned to Japan in the fall of 1897 to 
take up his life work. Entering the Association 
field at Tokio he was winning out in the same re- 
markable way as at Mary ville when suddenly a fatal 
disease struck him and he retired to Hirao, a village 
of some seven thousand people, where the work was 
less strenuous. 

His serious decline in health did not prevent his 
entering heartily into the Christian work. Gather- 
ing a class of boys he began to teach them English. 
Later he organized a literary society " after the dear 
old Mary ville style, " with the intention of forming 
a nucleus for Christian work. 

Though urged by his physician to abandon the 
task which under his hands was developing so 
rapidly, he continued to plan even larger things. 
"The work," he said, " was too interesting for me 
to follow the advice of the doctor and consequently 
I planned and organized the society into a school." 

A staff of nin& teachers was secured, not one of 
whom had a fixed salary. The school was opened 

[34] 



KIN TAKAHASHI 



with an enrollment of thirty-four pupils and soon 
was moved into larger quarters with an attendance 
of one hundred and twenty. 

This bold venture of a young man on the verge 
of the grave attracted the attention of educators and 
officials throughout the empire. The governor of 
the prefecture and the Commissioner of Education 
lent their presence to several public occasions where 
the excellence of Takahashi's school was cordially 
recognized. 

Although he had many bitter adversaries, Kin 
Takahashi never allowed the missionary motive to 
be obscured. The inhabitants of Hirao thought the 
sickness of the Christian teacher was the punish- 
ment of heaven for his having abjured the faith of 
his ancestors. The ingratitude of his fellow towns- 
men bore heavily upon his heart and, as his suffer- 
ings became excruciating and he was able only to 
crawl about, he was tempted at times to doubt the 
love of his heavenly Father. But, as the end drew 
near, the clouds were dispelled and his faith shone 
oat clear and triumphant. In a letter to a friend 
in America he requested prayers for the success of 
his work. " Pray for us, my friends, that this par- 
ticular plan may be successfully carried out and 
many souls may be saved through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 7 ' At the time of his death he was planning 
a new school building. An eligible site had been 
given and he had collected considerable money. 

On the morning of May 7, 1902, Kin Takahashi's 
spirit was released from his torn body. Eev. P. S. 
Curtis, of Tokio, a close friend, was summoned to 

[35] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



conduct the services. He says: " The house and 
grounds were crowded to overflowing. I suppose 
two hundred and fifty or three hundred persons 
were present, including the leading citizens of the 
town, who had been impressed by the earnest life 
of this young Christian. The streets were literally 
lined with hundreds, and when we reached the hill- 
side where his body was to be interred, we found 
nearly a thousand people gathered." 

Thus one of Japan's most vital Christian men was 
cut off in the midst of his days, when the most bril- 
liant prospects of usefulness appeared to be opening 
before his glowing vision. But why " cut off"? 
Takahashi would be the first to repudiate such an 
interpretation of his life. At the very end, while 
in great suffering, he spoke to a friend of how " all 
things work together for good," finding great con- 
solation in the words of the apostle. 

He longed greatly to see his parents become 
Christians but died without having that prayer ful- 
filled. He saw his work in Hirao decline by reason 
of his illness and many of his cherished plans 
thwarted. But the light of his faith burned the 
brighter as his earthly projects failed, and he died 
with these words comforting his last hours, " My 
earnest expectation and my hope is that Christ shall 
be magnified in my body ; whether by life or by 
death. " " For to me to live is Christ ; and to die 
is gain. ,? 



[36] 



IV 

Arthur Frame Jackson, of Cambridge 
11 Whose Life Was in the Saving of the World" 



In Memoriam* A* F* J, 

Hail, Christian soldier ! bravely hasfc thou done ! 
We who remember give God thanks for thee, 
Thy martyr spirit life through death has won, 
Life in eternity. 

Thy grave lies heaped with mound of alien earth, 
Far from the home where love and care were thine ; 
Yet on the home and land that saw thy birth 
Light from that grave shall shine. 

Brief was thy service ; but for thee need fall 
No tear, nor pass the semblance of a sigh ; 
Thou hast found kindred meet in heaven's bright hall, 
God's heroes, crowned on high ! 

For thou dost know the glory and the song 
Which fill with wonder all that holy place, 
And thou art crowned amidst the martyr throng 
Who look upon God's face. 

— Nelson Bitton. 



IV 

ARTHUR FRAME JACKSON, OF CAM- 
BRIDGE 

" Whose Life Was in the Saving of the World " 

Alfred Costain, author of "The Life of Dr. 
Arthur Jackson of Manchuria," quotes that saying 
of the early church father : " The glory of God is a 
living man, and the life of man is the vision of 
God. " It was this sentence that came to the surface 
as Jackson strode away from Costain's door in the 
glow of the autumn evening, and his friend saw him 
no more on earth. 

Arthur Jackson would have been the last man 
in the world to acknowledge himself a hero. All 
his life he had responded to the call of duty in 
the daily round. One day he was called to perform 
his duty under circumstances of unusual interest 
and danger. He played his part as manfully in the 
one instance as in the other. And when the call 
came to play his part with his life in his hand, he 
faced the challenge unflinchingly. Is there any- 
thing more in being a hero than that? 

The goodly fellowship of martyrs is enriched by 
the life of Arthur Jackson. He was little known 
when he started from Scotland for distant Man- 
churia, but to-day the name of Jackson is a chal- 

[39] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



lenge to college men- throughout the world, and 
many a medical student has been made to think 
more deeply of the sacredness of his profession as 
he pauses to consider the magnificent enthusiasm 
of a man like Jackson and the ready outpour of his 
life for others. 

" There must be something in religion," said one 
of them, •" when a man like Jackson is so unmis- 
takably religious." 

The largest asset of Arthur Jackson's early life 
was an ideal Christian home. His father, Eobert 
Jackson, was a merchant of Liverpool, who, amid his 
busy life, found time to make his children his boon 
companions. He was an elder of the church and 
Sunday-school superintendent. He, with his strong 
and beautiful wife, made the Sabbath a delight for 
the children of their home. Eagerly did they look 
forward to the Bible stories, the songs, the special 
picture books and toys, and the long walks in the 
lengthening shadows of summer afternoons. 

Arthur and his brothers became active members 
in a boys' organization called "The Knights of the 
Cross.' ' A winsome lad he was as, in 1897, he en- 
tered the Merchant Tailors' School at Crosby. 
Who could help liking the fair-haired boy with the 
radiant smile and friendly ways? He had a bent 
toward the sciences and won the Foundation Prize 
for mathematics. But it is in athletics that Cros- 
beians remember him most vividly. He was their 
leader on the gridiron and won for them the Bugby 
Football Challenge Shield which they had coveted 
for ten losing years. At the end of a stiff game 

[40] 



ARTHUR FRAME JACKSON 



with Liverpool College, Jackson rallied his men and 
snatched victory out of the grasp of their stronger 
rivals. 

One summer the Jacksons were staying at a hotel 
in Argyleshire. News came one afternoon that two 
men were drowning in a loch up in the hills over a 
mile distant. Arthur outstripped the other res- 
cuers, and, plunging into the water clad in his foot- 
ball togs, fastened a rope around one man, who was 
still clinging to an overturned boat. Then, with the 
aid of men on the bank, who had been helplessly 
looking on, he brought the drowning man to shore. 
The other man had already succumbed. 

Jackson won two scholarships at Crosby and en- 
tered Cambridge in his eighteenth year. Choosing 
Peterhouse, one of the smaller colleges, he at once 
identified himself with the full life of the university. 
He was able to made a just balance between his 
studies and his " extra-academic ? ' activities, a very 
difficult achievement during the first year or two of 
college life, especially with students entering at an 
early age. He did not allow "the side shows to 
swallow up the circus. " Winning "Firsts" in his 
yearly examinations, he came to his final science 
tests fully prepared to achieve his greatest academic 
honor, First in the Tripos. 

But the big- boned, hard-muscled youth could not 
long remain at the university without being called 
upon to contribute to its athletic glory. He was 
the best oar in the Peterhouse boat and the college 
magazine commented upon him thus : "A tower of 
strength and honest to the core. Heavy with his 

[41] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



hands, but races magnificently. " Even in his last 
term, with the Tripos to win, he kept his place in 
the crew, " showing the best example of hard work 
and racing with coolness and power. " 

Football was, however, more congenial to Jack- 
son. He soon rose to be a captain in the college 
Eugby and, according to the college reporter, was 
noted for being a "glutton for work." He inspired 
the team with enthusiastic energy and set an ex- 
ample of hard work and activity, "His low, hard 
tackling was displayed to spectacular advantage. " 

As in the wider circles of life so in college there 
are men who are social, athletic, and political 
"climbers." They go in to win glory for them- 
selves. They seek leadership for personal satisfac- 
tion. The game is worth the candle only as the 
candle sheds its beams on them. 

But Jackson was not a "spot-light man." His 
modesty was in the wood, and not a thin veneer. 
On the eve of his departure for China a friend 
wished for him a long and busy career. "Thank 
you very much," he said simply, "I am eager to 
serve." The main chance for him was a chance to 
help others, especially the unfortunate. Strong as 
he was, suffering and need took heavy toll of his 
heart. He who asked not pity of any man pos- 
sessed a soul flooded with pity for lost men. He 
craved the privilege of healing the world's open 
sores. There was for him but one way and that was 
to bring in the Great Physician. 

This was the secret of Jackson's absorbing inter- 
est in the religious life of Cambridge. His splendid 

[42] 



ARTHUR FRAME JACKSON 



records on the field or in the debating society were 
only the physical and intellectual background for a 
soul flaming with the holy passion of service under 
the banner of Christ. "I can do nothing without 
hiin." He went into the Christian Union of Cam- 
bridge with an unaffected simplicity of religious 
fervor that brought him into prominence as a 
Christian leader. In his third year he became 
president of the Christian Union. Noting certain 
tendencies toward cant and sanctimony, he set 
himself the task of making faith a reality among his 
fellow students. He abhorred set phrases and the 
patois of religiosity. His sane and wholesome 
interpretation of the Way, his passion for truth at 
any cost, his refusal to invade the personalities of 
his associates, won for him a unique place in their 
confidence and esteem. He respected the convic- 
tions of others, making his own life the final argu- 
ment for his faith. "I like Jackson," said one, 
" because he has convictions and lives them, but 
does not try to ram them down other fellows' 
throats. " 

Jackson was a wonderful friend of younger boys. 
He taught a Sunday-school class during his univer- 
sity days. From Scotland he wrote home : " Please 
send my Sunday-school register. It has the address 
of a boy I promised to send a picture post card to. 
I am sorry to bother you so through my forgetful- 
ness." He remembered the big thing, however — 
being kind to " the kiddies." 

Two years after he left Cambridge we find him 
at one of the free Church camps for schoolboys 

[43] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



during a vacation from arduous work at the Eoyal 
Infirmary where he had become a resident medical 
officer. It was there that the buoyant qualities of the 
u eternal boy }i were in finest exercise. He threw 
himself with gay abandon into the unconventional 
life of the camp, and many a lad learned to love the 
great, laughing athlete not only for his prowess as a 
leader of the sports and songs of the field and fire- 
side but also for the talks he gave on manliness, the 
clean life, and the realness of religion. "I would 
remember him most often," one wrote, u as the 
jolly doctor who was equally at home in his comic 
song and in the tent meeting where he spoke for his 
Lord." His biographer tells why boys liked him : 
"His gayety was genuine, not a smiling mask as- 
sumed to beguile and trap unwary youth. He did 
not laugh or sing humorous songs that they might 
count him t a good fellow y but because he could not 
help laughing and because he enjoyed a comic song. 
And when the talk turned on matters more serious, 
on duty and courage and trust in the Hero Saviour, 
he was still the same, transparently honest. " 

Never through the years of scientific research and 
intellectual inquiry did his faith falter. His in- 
tense eagerness to get beneath the appearance of 
things to the ultimate reality had the effect of 
strengthening his belief in the unseen. While 
others were wrestling with intellectual doubts and 
suffering an eclipse of faith, Arthur Jackson was 
making his beliefs issue in action. Eeligion was 
for him an experimental thing. If it would not 
work he would have none of it. With Henry 

[44] 



ARTHUR FRAME JACKSON 



Druuimond one might say his working motto was : 
" Life and religion are one thing or neither is any- 
thing.'' 

Prayer was to him not so much a means of grace 
as the deep and regular breathing of the soul. It 
was on his knees that he wrought out his life 
problems, and always he was asking his friends to 
pray for him. He seemed hungry for larger views 
of God's way with the world. He had no smug 
satisfaction with his spiritual attainment but was 
ever reaching out for the things that " eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard." " I wish people would not 
talk so glibly about the simplicity of all these 
things, for I am sure they are not really so simple. 
We will never get to the bottom of them here ; we 
will always have more to learn." 

Jackson liked to talk with ministers of deep 
learning and vital piety. Among his dearest friends 
he counted some of the eminent men in noncon- 
formist pulpits. Among them was Eev. G. A. 
Johnston Eoss, then of the Cambridge pulpit, who 
says, "He came closer to me than any student 
during the years of my ministry." 

In 1910 Arthur Jackson had completed his course 
as a medical missionary, and put himself at the dis- 
posal of the Foreign Committee of the Presbyterian 
Church of England, of which he was a member. 
He imposed no conditions as to the post to which 
he should be assigned. He was promised the first 
vacancy, but as a period of waiting was distasteful 
to him, he offered himself to the United Free 
Church of Scotland. " I am just going up to Bdin- 

[45] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



burgh to have a shot at the Frees, " he said to a 
friend. 

At that time Dr. Dugald Christie, a veteran of 
twenty years of honored service in the Manchu 
capital, had returned to Scotland and was soliciting 
funds for the extension of his work. Jackson met 
him, and was fired with the great opportunity of- 
fered in the chief city of Manchuria. He was given 
a place on the staff of the medical college as an 
assistant to Dr. Christie, and sailed in the latter 
part of September for Moukden. 

Dr. Christie, in his book, u Thirty Years in the 
Manchu Capital/ 7 tells how "he won the hearts of 
all with whom he came in contact. We have known 
many new missionaries, but none who became popu- 
lar with the Chinese so rapidly. He seemed just 
the man for college work and was looking forward 
enthusiastically to a life among our Moukden stu- 
dents in that new college building whose planning 
so keenly interested him." 

During the first few weeks Dr. Jackson threw 
himself into the study of the difficult language with 
characteristic energy. He broke the monotony of 
his studies by teaching his beloved football game to 
the college students, and found an occasional hour 
for his favorite pastime of skating. But his heart 
was bleeding as he saw the victims of disease and 
superstition going down to death all about him. 
" I certainly feel the need of a fuller life in accord 
ance with Christ's ideals. How impotent we are in 
the face of all this mass of contented heathendom 
unless we really have power from on high ! I know 

[46] 



ARTHUR FRAME JACKSON 



you are praying for me, and will you think about 
this specially, that I may be more filled with the 
Spirit and be so helped that nothing in me may 
prevent the Holy Spirit's work?" Surely the 
fruitage of his rare, strong nature was being gar- 
nered for a harvest that lay in " the light that never 
was on sea or land." 

The black death was bearing down upon them 
out of the north. Daily that terrible destroyer, the 
pneumonic plague, stalked nearer. It is the dead- 
liest of all known diseases, for there has never been 
an authenticated case of recovery. The Moukden- 
Peking Railway was about to be closed, and on the 
morning of Saturday, January 14, 1910, there came 
into Moukden the last special train of coolies. Dr. 
Jackson and his colleagues inspected the trainload 
and sent them on, but two deaths occurred after 
leaving Moukden and the train was sent back to 
the city Sunday afternoon. The weather tempera- 
ture was twenty- five degrees below zero, and the 
railroad authorities proposed to keep the shivering 
Chinese in the cars until the next morning. Many 
would certainly Have perished of cold. But Dr. 
Jackson interposed. u We must do our best for 
the poor beggars, " he said. He arranged to house 
them under guard, in several large but filthy Chi- 
nese inns, overnight, and then began an eight-day 
fight, the supreme struggle of his twenty-six happy 
years. 

It was a heartbreakiug agony, ending only in de- 
feat as Jackson saw his helpless wards dropping 
dead by scores every day. But he did save Mouk- 

[47] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



den from the ravages of this, the most frightful of 
all scourges. Writing to his sister in the midst of 
it, he said : "I am going to examine passengers on 
the Chinese Imperial Eailway to try to prevent the 
plague getting south. However, the risk is not 
great for me. . . . You need not mention this 
job I have got to mother, as it would make her un- 
necessarily anxious. " 

Day after day, in mask, hood, and white smock, 
breathing through an antiseptic pad, he took the 
temperatures of the plague-stricken coolies, sup- 
ported them on his strong arm as they stumbled 
into the hospital, or bent over the dying to alleviate 
their last sufferings. 

For his assistants Dr. Jackson was most tenderly 
solicitous. " Stand back, Elder," " Don't come 
too near, Coppin," were his constant warnings. 
He saved others, himself he could not save. 

On the morning of January 25, Jackson awoke 
with a feeling of stupor and heaviness. At seven 
o'clock that night, the unmistakable sign, the red 
froth, appeared on his lips and Jackson called, 
"Look out, Young, the spit has come." Within a 
few hours this splendid man who, only the day be- 
fore, had remarked in high spirits, "Not many fel- 
lows get such a chance as this," passed as a victor 
into the great glory. 

Dr. Jackson's nearest friends were unprepared for 
the tremendous impression made by the death of 
this foreign physician upon the Chinese officials of 
the province and the city. The Chinese papers 
rang with praise of his self-sacrificing work. Ee- 

[48] 



ARTHUR FRAME JACKSON 



gard this comment from a non-Christian daily, 
il His death in laboring for our country was actu- 
ally carrying out the Christian principle of giving 
up one's own life to save the world." Another 
paper paid this tribute, "Now that he has given 
his only life for the lives of others, we see that he 
was a true Christian, who has done what Jesus did 
thousands of years ago." 

Hsi Liang, the viceroy of the province, arranged 
a memorial service in Moukden with the British 
consul general, and read a remarkable address, the 
significance of which can be appreciated only by 
those who understand the traditional antagonism 
entertained by the Chinese to foreigners. 

The following extracts will convey an idea : 

"Dr. Jackson, moved by his Sovereign's spirit, 
and with the heart of the Saviour who gave his life 
to deliver the world, responded nobly when we 
asked him to help our country in the time of its 
need. He went forth to help us in our fight daily, 
where the pest lay thickest ; amidst the groans of 
the dying, he struggled to cure the stricken, to find 
medicine to stay the evil. Worn by his efforts, the 
pestilence seized upon him, and took him from us 
long ere his time. Our sorrow is beyond all meas- 
ure ; our grief too deep for words. . . . The 
Presbyterian Mission has lost a recruit of great 
promise, the Chinese Government a man who gave 
his life in his desire to help them." 

u O Spirit of Dr. Jackson, we pray you intercede 
for the twenty million people of Manchuria, and 
ask the Lord of heaven to take away this pesti- 

[49] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



lence, so that we may once more lay our heads in 
peace upon our pillows. " 

u In life you were brave, now you are an exalted 
Spirit. Noble Spirit, who sacrificed your life for 
us, help us still, and look down in kindness upon 
us all!" 

Hsi Liang sent the bereaved mother a letter of 
sympathy enclosing ten thousand dollars (Mexican) 
for the use of the family. This money was returned 
by Mrs. Jackson to the medical college, to be used 
as a memorial for her son. The viceroy on hearing 
this was moved with deep emotion. "What a 
mother, and what a son!" he exclaimed. This 
high official added further large sums to the com- 
pletion of the memorial portion of the hospital and 
toward the endowment of the Jackson Memorial 
Chair of Medicine in the college. 

In the new hall has been placed a tablet of beaten 
copper, with this inscription : 

In Memory of 

Arthur Frame Jackson, 

b. a., m. b., b. c, d. t. m. 

Who came to teach in this College, 

Believing that by serving China he might best serve God, 

And who laid down his life in that service 

On January 25, 1911, Aged 26, 

While striving to stay the advance of pneumonic plague, 
The Western Half of This Building Is Erected by 

Mrs. Jackson, His Mother, and 
His Excellency, Hsi Liang, 

Viceroy of Manchuria. 
[50] 






ARTHUR FRAME JACKSON 



A friend, writing to Dr. Jackson's mother, gave 
comfort to a wounded heart in these words : 
41 Arthur is living! . . . Your hopes for him 
are not to be deceived ; you have him where you 
would have him — serving God free. . . . The 
best man I knew in my seven years at Cambridge 
was Arthur Jackson, and, now he is gone, life leans 
more toward the 'plenished Heaven. 7 " 



[51] 



V 



Hugh McAllister Beaver, of Pennsyl- 
vania State College 

The Boy Who Could See the Master's Face 



This is the word that year by year, 
While in her place the school is set, 
Every one of her sons must hear, 
And none that hears it dare forget. 

This they all with a joyful mind, 

Bear thro' life like a torch in flame, 

And falling fling to the host behind, 

" Play up— play up — and play the garne." 

— Henry Newboldt, 



Whenever you conversed with him alone, he made 
you feel that there was a third Being there, in whose 
presence he distinctly felt himself to be. 

—F. C. Shairp. 






hugh McAllister beaver, of Penn- 
sylvania STATE COLLEGE 

The Boy Who Could See the Master* s Face 

One of the most engaging personalities that ever 
trod the campus of an American college was Hugh 
McAllister Beaver. Intense and impulsive by na- 
ture, his was a life perfectly controlled by the spirit 
of God. " Give me a man with a passion," said a 
college professor. "When that passion is under 
God's control he can do more than a thousand tepid 
souls." Hugh Beaver was one of the most loved 
boys in his home town, his college, and the wider 
circles of life. Beneath that ardent personality was 
a foundation of sterling character easily discerned 
by those used to estimating values. In a memorial 
service one of the leading lawyers of Bellefonte 
spoke of young Beaver as "our most distinguished 
citizen. *' 

Born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, March 29, 1873, 
Hugh Beaver began life under favorable conditions. 
Good blood was in his veins. His father, the 
Honorable James A. Beaver, was of Huguenot de- 
scent, while his mother, Mary McAllister Beaver, 
came of Scotch-Irish ancestry. Hugh 's great-grand- 
father on his mother's side, Major Hugh McAllister, 
fought through the Indian wars and was the first 
man in Lancaster County to form a company to 

[55] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



reenforce General Washington in the darkest period 
of the American Bevolution. 

Descending thus from generations of fighting men 
— the old Pennsylvania stock of thoroughgoing pa- 
triots — Hugh Beaver was endowed by nature with 
high and noble impulses. 

The atmosphere of the Beaver home was uncom- 
promisingly Christian. The Bible and the Shorter 
Catechism were honored. General Beaver believed 
in the efficacy of the catechism and offered an air 
gun to Hugh as an inducement to its memorizing. 
The offer was immediately accepted and the one 
hundred and seven questions and answers soon 
mastered. 

As a boy Hugh was always a ringleader in the 
sports of the town, exhibiting a wonderful spirit of 
bravery. He outdid his companions in athletic 
sports, and at the age of fourteen he was the best 
pitcher of his age in the town. Hugh's curves were 
famous and his club styled itself, " The Little Pota- 
toes Hard to Peel." 

Hugh's father served through the Civil War aud 
lost his right leg in battle. Though peace-loving 
and kindly, he believed in developing the spirit of 
patriotism in the hearts of American youth and en- 
couraged the formation of the National Guard. In 
1886 General Beaver was elected Governor of 
Pennsylvania and the family moved to Harrisburg. 
Hugh's Bellefonte Military Company, a well-drilled 
organization, still continued, and he begged his 
father to provide tents for camping in the moun- 
tains. For two years Hugh was the head of the 

[56] 



hugh McAllister beaver 



camp life of his company until the boys parted for 
various colleges. 

After going to Harrisburg, Hugh Beaver began a 
course of physical training in the hope of increas- 
ing his strength which was below the normal. He 
was given a full set of gymnastic apparatus and 
exercised conscientiously until he developed a fine 
symmetrical physique. It was about this time 
that President Harrison, who had met Hugh in 
camp with the Pennsylvania National Guard at 
Mt. Gretna, would have appointed him to West 
Point, and his father wrote asking whether he de- 
sired to consider it. In reply he wrote to his fa- 
ther, U I have no desire to spend the greater part 
of my life in keeping Indians on their reservations, 
or in loafing about Fort Monroe or some other swell 
fort. " Both his father and mother concurred in his 
decision. 

In the spring of 1891 he completed his prepara- 
tion for college at Bellefbnte Academy where he left 
a record of radiant, happy activity. ' l Such sunny 
lives are rare and with difficulty to be replaced," 
wrote a teacher in the academy later on. 

At this time Hugh was passing through a period 
of great temptations. He was accustomed to regard 
his academy experience as critical and referred very 
often to it as " going just to the edge." To his 
mother's prayers he attributed many an escape from 
the perils besetting young men at this age. 

Pennsylvania State College, about fifteen miles 
from Bellefonte, an institution founded by Hugh's 
grandfather, was the pride of the Beaver family. 

[57] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



General Beaver was for many years chairman of the 
Board of Trustees and at one time acting president. 
None of the members of the family ever thought of 
going elsewhere than to State College. At this 
time Hugh was a professing Christian but not 
deeply interested in Christian activities. His life 
did not differ from that of the majority of students. 
A letter from Eobert E. Speer, a close friend of the 
family, was most opportune. It was received a few 
days before Hugh entered State College. 

" I believe," said Mr. Speer, " that with the ma- 
jority of fellows the first few months determine 
their whole course and often their whole life. You 
understand, of course, what I am driving at, Hugh, 
that a fellow wants to be a first-class Christian from 
the first day to the last, that he ought to run up his 
flag at the first opportunity, never strike it, though 
sometimes he feels he is flying the colors by himself. 
I have met plenty of college men whose great regret 
for their college course was that they had not been 
better Christians. I never met a man who wished 
he had been a worse one. I shall pray that God 
will give you a useful and happy year and that you 
may be one of his own men all the time you are in 
college and forever." 

Young Beaver entered the Beta Theta Pi Fra- 
ternity and from the time of his initiation resolved 
that the chapter should have a house of its own. 
The chapter had been chartered only six years but 
Beaver was proud of the society and immediately 
began planning for the construction of the new 
building. He supervised all the work, planned the 

[58] 



hugh McAllister beaver 



financial campaign, and handled the smallest de- 
tails until in 1895 a fine home for the chapter was 
completed. 

One of the great experiences of his life was meet- 
ing Mr. Moody during the summer following his 
sophomore year, while the evangelist was conduct- 
ing meetings at the World's Fair in Chicago. He 
went to one of Mr. Moody's Sunday meetings rather 
from curiosity and a sense of duty but came away 
deeply impressed, and was the more ready to attend 
the Geneva Conference of college students that sum- 
mer. It was here that Hugh Beaver found the new 
life in all its great reality. His whole being seemed 
to have been transformed, and thenceforth was ra- 
diant with the light of the companionship of Christ. 
His junior year at college was marked by a deeper 
sense of responsibility and a joyous acceptance of 
the new opportunities afforded for Christian work. 
It was then, as a friend writes, that he awakened 
to u a new sense of the deeper meanings of life with 
a growing passion for the souls of men." He be- 
came more gentle and winsome, exhibiting a poise 
and peacefuluess not shown before. He seemed to 
have heard the challenge of the poet : 

" O young mariner, 
Down to the haven, 
Call your companions. 
Launch your vessel 
And crowd your canvas, 
And. ere it vanishes 
Over the margin, 
After it, follow ifr, 
Follow the gleam. " 
[ 59 ] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



Dr. John E. Mott attended the Pennsylvania Con- 
ference of College Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion Presidents at that time and writes as follows : 

" Largely as a result of Hugh's personal influence 
and efforts the large room where the meeting was 
held was crowded with college men. The Spirit of 
God worked mightily in the meeting. The interest 
manifested was so great that we had a second meet- 
ing on the night of the same day. In both of these 
meetings I was impressed by Hugh's intense prayer- 
fulness and also by his tremendous earnestness and 
loving tact in personal work. He forgot all for- 
mality, sitting down by the side of classmates, put- 
ting his arm around them, and urging them to take 
a decided stand for Christ. Not less than three men 
were led, under the influence of his burning personal 
appeals, to decide for Christ. " 

It was Hugh's great friend, John H. McCon- 
key, the well-known lay evangelist, who witnessed 
Hugh Beaver's complete surrender to God. He 
tells of the day when " with great joy we knelt to- 
gether while he laid his life at the feet of the Mas- 
ter. Very humble, tender, and beautiful was his 
low-voiced prayer of committal. His will had 
for sometime before been trembling in the bal- 
auce. . . . Little did he know how brief was 
the span of earthly existence allotted to him. 
. . . Had Hugh Beaver failed to yield his young 
life to God's service, had he postponed his decision 
three or four short years, it would have been too 
late." 

In the senior year at State College Hugh was the 

[60] 



hugh McAllister beaver 



same buoyant, radiant personality as in earlier 
years, but depths had been opened up in his nature 
through which could be seen a flaming soul. Be- 
fore graduation a call had come to accept the 
position as secretary of the college Young Men's 
Christian Associations of the State of Pennsyl- 
vania. Then ensued a struggle between his pros- 
pects and intentions of entering a business career 
and a life devoted exclusively to Christian work. 
" I am afraid if I ever get into this kind of work I 
never can get out," he said. After a period of un- 
certainty he wrote, "I have been calling for hymn 
No. 107 in about all the meetings I have attended, 
4 My Jesus, as thou wilt, ' and it seemed that the 
spirit of the hymn should be a guide to me in this 
the first call that has cost me very much to obey." 

President Atherton, of State College, writing of 
this episode in Hugh's life says : " All his enthusi- 
asms were now becoming blended in one great over- 
mastering enthusiasm. But with it all was the same 
cool, skillful, and practical judgment which he had 
always shown in the transaction of business. 
There was an utter absence of self-consciousness or 
conceit, coupled with absolute confidence in his 
power to accomplish his objects." After attending 
the ISTorthfield Conference in the summer of 1895 he 
began gathering material for his addresses among 
the students of the Pennsylvania colleges. In his 
notebook of this time were found such sentences as 
these : a Take care to whom you give the night key 
of your heart." " Do not wait for a feeling of 
power." "If we can't pray we can't preach." 

[61] ' 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



"He wants the goats' hair too ; there are many in 
fine purple but, bless you, the goats' hairs are more 
plenty." "Personal life of students in college is 
the great cause of success or failure. Make us 
pure." 

During the following winter Hugh visited Blooms- 
burg Normal School, Washington & Jefferson Col- 
lege, Mercersburg Academy, Dickinson College, 
West Chester Normal, University of Pennsylvania, 
and his own Alma Mater. From the start his work 
was successful and he gripped students wherever he 
went. The importance of Bible study and prayer 
were driven home on every occasion and he began to 
see the need of honest speech in the matter of per- 
sonal purity. He managed, however, to speak of 
the vices of students in such a way as to keep his 
own imagination and that of others clean and pure. 
About this time he signed a White Cross pledge 
and wore its pin. He was constantly writing letters 
to students he had met, urging them to make a strong 
stand for Christ and to build up the spiritual life of 
the school. 

November 16, 1895, was another epochal day with 
Hugh Beaver. He tells in a letter to his mother of 
a great yearning in his life that had not until then 
been satisfied. " At Kutztown," he wrote, " it be- 
came so manifest that I slept poorly. So, early in 
the morning I rose and asked God what was the 
matter, then wrote out a deed." This deed of con- 
secration was written on the back of his White 
Cross pledge and is as follows : 

" This sixteenth day of November, 1895, I, Hugh 

[62] 



hugh McAllister beaver 



McA. Beaver, do of my own free will, give myself, 
all that I am and have, entirely, unreservedly and 
unqualifiedly to Him, whom having not seen I 
love, on whom, though now I see him not, I believe. 
Bought with a price, I give myself to him who at 
the cost of his own blood purchased me. Now com- 
mitting myself to him who is able to guard me from 
stumbling and to set me before the presence of his 
glory without blemish in exceeding joy, I trust my- 
self to him, for all things, to be used as he shall see 
fit, where he shall see fit. Sealed by the Holy 
Spirit, filled with the peace of God that passeth un- 
derstanding, to him be all glory, world without end. 
Amen." 

In January he visited Philadelphia, spending a 
week at the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford 
College, the College of Pharmacy, Hahnemann 
Medical College, and the Medico- Chirurgical Col- 
lege. "Medical students, " he wrote, "are a hard 
lot but the power of Crod can reach them as well as 
others. " 

Once again were presented to him the splendid 
opportunities before him if he would follow the 
work of his distinguished father. It was pointed 
out also that if he entered mercantile business his 
remarkable qualities would net him large financial 
returns. His answer to the man who proposed it 
was this, ' { Old man, I am not laying up my treasures 
here." 

In June at the Xorthfield Conference the results of 
the year spent in the Pennsylvania colleges were seen 
when one hundred and twelve men, representing 

[63] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



twenty- eight institutions in Pennsylvania, con- 
stituted the delegation from the Keystone State. 
On returning home Beaver was full of the thought of 
starting summer conferences on the Northfield plan in 
" old Pennsylvania. " The conferences now held at 
Baglesmere and Pocono Pines are the fulfillment of 
Hugh Beaver's dream. In July of that year he had 
charge of the Young Men's Christian Association 
work in the encampment of the National Guard at 
Mt. Gretna. He spoke every evening and was L i very 
much moved to see the hard old cases touched by 
the old, old story." 

He w r as not one of the cocksure, spiritually con- 
fident kind but was constantly leaning on the ever- 
lasting arms for help. " You know," he wrote to a 
friend that summer, " I am very weak, very wicked, 
and I am sure your prayers will be answered some 
day. " Then, as though having a premonition of the 
shortness of his life, he observed, " Perhaps I am not 
going to stay very long, that soon I shall be like him 
for I ' shall see him as he is.' " 

He told how Mr. Moody asked him to go to the 
Mt. Hermon School and teach the English Bible. 
Later on he wrote to Mr. Moody, " I earnestly feel 
that I can make my life count for more for the 
Master in the field in which I am working." 

In the fall of 1896 he spoke at the University of 
Pennsylvania in Houston Hall, saying, "If the big 
guns are all used up and you think it for the best we 
will trust God to use even the very weakest things." 
It was said at a time when there were men at the 
university who would go to hear Hugh speak who 

[64] 






hugh McAllister beaver 



never went inside a religious meeting of any other 
kind. 

The following March he went through the Penn- 
sylvania colleges with Charles T. Studd, of England, 
the noted Cambridge athlete. Studd became ill and 
had to relinquish the task. In a letter written to 
Beaver afterwards he says : "I can never thank you 
enough for all your love and kindness to me. Let 
us ask Him to make us shine for him. " Studd' s 
friendship was a great inspiration to the younger 
man. After Beaver's death Studd, writing from 
England, said : " He was so ripe — God could not 
spare him longer. He seemed to twine himself 
around one's heart ; he was indeed to me a brother, 
a brother beloved. . . . How nice it will be to 
see his beaming face at the portal to welcome us in 
by and by ! " 

Hugh won the hearts of high-school boys. This 
characteristic outburst from one of them, in a letter 
written after a convention, is worth quoting: "If 
I am only a high-school boy, and if this boy can be 
of any assistance to you when he is through his edu- 
cation in bringing souls to Christ, I will be at your 
service. In fact you are my model. " 

Again at Eorthfield in July, 1897, Hugh was full 
of overflowing joyousness in Christ. In one of his 
addresses at Northfield he said: "Men, I tell you 
Jesus Christ cau and does keep a fellow from sin. 
I tell you he is a real Saviour." Mr. Mott recalls 
Hugh's presence on Bound Top, the hill where the 
conferences at Northfield reach high-water mark. 
"I shall always associate him with that sacred 

[65] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



spot," writes Mr. Mott. " I do not recall a student 
whom I have met in my ten years' work among col- 
lege men, who exemplified in his personality more 
completely the unselfish, loyal, loving, joyous, in- 
tense spirit which was associated with the meetings 
on Round Top." 

One of his best friends recalls Hugh's prayer life 
and how Hugh insisted upon praying over the small 
things of life. He tells how he prayed while the 
State College football team was playing the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. "It was the only time we 
ever scored on the University and I knew we 
would," he said with a beaming face. When a 
friend was in training for an athletic meet he would 
say, "It will help Perce in his Christian work if 
he takes first place, and we must pray for him." 
When the athlete had won the long jump, Hugh 
slapped his friend on the shoulder, crying, " Well, 
didn't I tell you he would win?" Few young 
people have the vivid consciousness of Christ that 
was Hugh Beaver's. "Sometimes," he said, "my 
prayers seem formal but at other times Christ is so 
real that I open my eyes and really expect to see 
him, and I should not wonder if I shall some 
day." 

His last work was at the Women's Conference at 
Northfield. At that conference he was the means 
of bringing hundreds of young women into closer 
touch with Christ and a more zealous desire to en- 
ter his service. His daily morning Bible readings 
were attended by more than a hundred and fifty 
girls. On Monday, July 19, his last public words 

[66] 



hugh McAllister beaver 



on earth were uttered. This farewell message is 
considered to be "the most loving and most fruit- 
ful service of his short life." His closing words 
were : 

" Oh, may we not make it necessary that some 
great cloud should come over our lives before we 
go apart and rest with Him a little while. Some 
of us are very weary to-night, physically, and feel 
that above all things we need rest. Some may be 
dissatisfied with their own lives. Oh, come apart 
and rest with him a little while alone, for never, 
never can we be transformed into his image by look- 
ing into our owu lives. You remember how Paul 
puts it, l But we all with unveiled faces reflecting 
as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are trans- 
formed into the same image from glory to glory.' 
If we are to be like Christ it must be by just coming 
apart to rest with him. May we learn that lesson 
now and not wait until the clouds have come ! In 
the sunshine of his own love let us learn to keep 
very close to him ! May he help us ! " 

The radiance of another world was breaking 
through and Hugh's eyes looked afar toward the 
plains of peace. Driving out one day with a friend, 
after his return to Bellefonte, he looked up and with 
a joyous countenance said, u I do not know why it 
is, whether because I am tired and worn out or not, 
but sometimes I feel that it will not be very long 
before I am with my Master/' and then he repeated 
the lines he loved so well, beginning : 

11 It may be in the evening when the work of the day is 
done." 

[67] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



A few days later appendicitis developed, a disease 
which had given its warnings but which he had not 
heeded, and on August 2 Hugh Beaver met the 
King in his beauty. 

At the memorial service which was held at 
Northfield, Mr. Moody said that no other visitors 
to Northfield had left such deep impressions as had 
Professor Drummond and Hugh Beaver. "I can- 
not understand it," said this great man of God, 
u except that the Lord had another place of higher 
service for him and so called him. May his mantle 
fall on thousands ! " 



[68] 



VI 



Isabella Marion Vosburgh, of Mount 
Holyoke 

How One Girl Became Human Radium 



Oh ! yet a few short years of useful life 

And all will be complete . . . 

. . . what we have loved 

Others will love and we will teach theni how ; 

Instruct them how the mind of man becomes 

A thousand times more beautiful than the earth 

On which he dwells. 

— Wordsworth. 



VI 

ISABELLA MARION VOSBURGH, OF 
MOUNT HOLYOKE 

Hoiv One Girl Became Human Radium 

Mount Holyoke College embodies in a pecul- 
iar degree the ideals of one woman. The dream of 
Mary Lyon was the higher education of women in 
skilled learning and culture expressed in terms of 
service. Her educational platform was this: "To 
hope and to desire and to love and to do as well as 
to think. 7 ' That women should be " strong- bodied, 
big-brained, great- souled, 77 was the effort of her life. 

Mary Lyon did not produce a somber religious 
atmosphere but an atmosphere pulsating with joy- 
ousness and a radiant simplicity. The ascetic type 
had no place in her scheme of life. "God wants 
you to be happy ; he made you to be happy, 7 ' she 
would often say. She had an intensely practical 
and serviceable kind of faith. " Eeal holiness 
tends to make the character energetic,' 7 was the 
teaching often on her lips. 

Had Mary Lyon lived to know Isabella Vosburgh, 
she would have discovered in this sunny, clear-eyed, 
quick-minded, athletic little freshman one of the 
truest exponents of her teachings. A love of Mary 
Lyon's ideals and purposes had been instilled into 
the mind of this young girl from her earliest years. 
Mount Holyoke was her mother 7 s Alma Mater. 

[71] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



Isabella Marion Vosburgh was born at Rochester, 
New York, October 14, 1888. She was brought np 
amid comfort and refinement and granted every 
opportunity for enlargement of life. Her family 
bestowed a wealth of affection upon the only 
daughter and sister. The greatest asset of a young 
life is a happy Christian home and Isabella enjoyed 
this privilege to the full. When in college she 
wrote to her mother, "I realized as I never did 
before what my love for you really is, and what it 
is to be your daughter." The time came when in 
her choice of a life work that filial appreciation was 
to be put to the severest test. 

The family moved to Oak Park, Illinois, a 
suburb of Chicago, where Isabella passed through 
the public schools and graduated with honor from 
the Oak Park High School in 1906. She entered 
Mount Holyoke College in the fall of that year and 
was graduated in the class of 1910. The following 
year was spent at Bryn Mawr College where she 
held a graduate scholarship in chemistry. From 
1911 to 1913 she was pursuing work in the same 
branch at the University of Chicago under fellow- 
ships won through her brilliant work. On the 
completion of her postgraduate course she took the 
chair of chemistry in Lake Erie College, Paines- 
ville, Ohio, accepting a year later a position as in- 
structor in her chosen science at Mount Holyoke. 
Had she lived until the following June her doctor's 
degree would have been awarded her. In Decem- 
ber, 1914, she was fatally injured in an automobile 
accident at South Hadley and died in a few hours. 

[72] 



ISABELLA MARION VOSBURGH 



When she came home for the holidays iii her 
freshman year she was stricken with scarlet fever 
and was kept out of college for nine weeks. It 
was a bitter disappointment, "but," writes her 
mother, "a very few little tears when the doctor 
said it was scarlet fever and a few at the end of six 
weeks when a neighbor, who came down after she 
did, was allowed to go out, were the only signs of 
what must have been a tragedy to her. She went 
back to college and made up her work ; in fact, 
she kept up her Latin while we were shut up in 
quarantine by reading the Cicero while I managed 
the 'pony.' " 

Her teachers and fellow students were made 
aware from the moment of her entrance into col- 
lege of the presence of a remarkably vital person- 
ality. She possessed verve and enthusiasm that 
brought her at once into a position of leadership. 
Her marvelous buoyancy of spirits carried her with 
flying leap over every obstacle. With all her in- 
tellectual keenness she enjoyed athletic sports and 
went into the games of the u gym ,? and field with 
greatest enthusiasm. As the intrepid little figure 
in red made basket after basket for her team in the 
games the spectators would break into admiring ap- 
plause. u Izzy carries everything before her," they 
would cry. " Her inability to think defeat'' was 
one of her outstanding qualities. Her dauntless 
courage inspired many a weary and downhearted 
girl with fresh determination and her sunny faith 
started many a doubter on the life that overcomes. 

It was not sheer strength of will that won her 
[73] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



high distinction. She possessed a nature that fairly 
radiated life, love, and happiness. Said one of her 
classmates, " Isabella was always smiling and I 
often begged her to let me know if she was ever 
blue and discouraged for she was ever helping 
others and never asking help or comfort for her- 
self. " Whether leading the " stunts " in the in- 
nocent night revels or working out an abstruse 
formula in chemistry, she maintained that un- 
chilled ardor and spontaneous joy ousness that won 
for her the nickname of " Sunny." 

One might fancy that this superb quality came 
merely from a natural lightness of temperament. 
But added to her inheritance of disposition was an 
underlying purpose to consecrate her gift to the joy 
of the Lord. She capitalized her popularity by 
giving it a spiritual content and expression. Miss 
Mary E. Ely, Secretary of the Mount Holyoke Col- 
lege Young Women's Christian Association, writes: 
"The secret of her genius for friendship was ever 
the spiritual motive underlying it all. She put her 
own life constantly into the lives of others, with this 
main motive : to make more real to others the Christ 
who was supreme in her life. 7 ' 

Isabella Vosburgh carried into her classroom work 
this same abounding vitality. When she was in high 
school one of her teachers remarked, " She studies 
geometry just as she plays basket ball." Her pas- 
sionate eagerness to get to the bottom of a subject, 
and to see its reactions upon the large life of the 
world gave her a commanding place in the serious 
side of college life. She majored in chemistry to 

[74] ' 



ISABELLA MARION VOSBURGH 



which she gave intense application. Miss Mary E. 
Holmes has written the following : il The beaut}' of 
the laws of nature as revealed to her in the study of 
science aroused in her the ambition to become her- 
self a first-hand seeker for truth. In her senior 
year she, like many other chemists of far greater 
experience, believed herself for one brief, happy 
moment to be the discoverer of a ' new element' " 

One of the outstanding characteristics of Miss 
Vosburgh was her remarkable power of mental con- 
centration. Her mother used to tell her that she 
read like Theodore Eoosevelt, a page at a time. 
She was able to learn her lessons in a room full of 
conversing people and so successfully could she 
isolate herself from her surroundings that she would 
not know whether there was anyone in the room or 
not. 

At the close of her year of teaching at Lake 
Erie College, Miss Vosburgh wrote to her beloved 
"Emma," Dr. Emma T)arr, Head of the Depart- 
ment of Chemistry at Mount Holyoke College : 
" You cannot realize what a large part you have 
had in influencing me, personally because you are 
such a wonderful Emma, and chemically when you 
made chemistry a living and wonderful science. I 
shall never forget my first comprehension and reali- 
zation of the periodic table, which connected 
chemistry with God in my mind. Oh, I only hope 
I can make at least a few people love it as I do ! " 

In a letter to Isabella's mother after her daughter's 
death, Professor Carr said : " You know what Isa- 
bella meant to me personally, but I wonder if you 

[ 75 ] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



realize at all what she meant to me professionally 
and to the department and to the college ever since 
I had her in sophomore chemistry and realized the 
eagerness of her interest in the work itself and her 
enthusiasm even then to make it live for other peo- 
ple. I have never known anyone interested in 
chemistry who combined the qualities of student, 
teacher, and woman as Isabella did. ?? 

The last year of her student days at the Univer- 
sity of Chicago was memorable. She had become 
an authority in her line of scientific research and 
was at work upon her thesis for the doctorate, a 
remarkable contribution to chemical knowledge, 
entitled, " The Beckman Eearrangement of Tri- 
phenyl Methyl Halogen Amines." President Jud- 
son wrote to the family, u Your daughter has won 
an honorable place in the University and has a 
bright future of useful achievement before her." 

Three years before this Isabella had passed 
through the valley of decision in the matter of her 
life work. The tragedy of the non-Christian world 
had pierced her soul and the poignancy of the call 
to volunteers had struck home to her heart. So it 
was that in her senior year she faced the great ques- 
tion. Always she had " felt it in her bones," as she 
expressed it, that she would be a missionary. Dur- 
ing the summer between her junior and senior years 
she thought seriously of speaking to her parents 
about it. But she was almost afraid to broach the 
question and u pondered it in her heart," arriving 
at length at the decision alone with God. The 
question would not down, fight it as she would. 

[76] 



ISABELLA MARION VOSBURGH 



"I have talked with nobody, have been urged by 
nobody. God meant that I should make a definite 
decision and only when I let myself say, i If that is 
God's will then I am willing to go,' did that awful 
feeling leave me." 

How often have we found it harder to reveal our 
deepest longings and experiences to those we love 
than to comparative strangers! This was true of 
Isabella Vosburgh in her crisis hour. In a letter to 
her mother betraying alike the eagerness to help 
win a lost world and tender consideration for the 
family sacrifice that must ensue upon such a deci- 
sion, Isabella poured out her heart. " I just can't 
tell you what in the last year Christ has come to 
mean for me. I only wish we had discussed such 
things a little more for then it would not be so hard 
to write all this. I find that Christ is the working 
force in my life, and were it not for his love and for 
the knowledge of him life would not be worth liv- 
ing. What could I do that would make me happier 
than to go to a foreign country where he is unknown 
and tell those people about him? I see how every- 
thing has been working toward this end. My 

friendship with Eebecca N , those wonderful 

ten days at Silver Bay, and various other things, 
have aW been in God's definite plan for me. If 
only I could make you realize the happiness and 
peace of mind that has come to me this last week, 
it would be much easier for you to get my point of 
view." 

The next letter home contained these words : " As 
long as you want me and need me I shall not bring 

[77] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



up the question again. Although I do not promise 
to give up the idea, I do promise to take no definite 
step until you are willing. " 

In the spring of 1913 came several offers of posi- 
tions. She accepted the chair at Lake Erie College 
and threw herself with characteristic energy into the 
life of that institution. " Oh, I love it all, the 
teaching, the contact with the girls, the life, the op- 
portunities ! ?? It pleased her to realize that her 
position as teacher did not prevent her mingling in 
hearty and familiar contact with students. "It 
certainly is a joy to realize that the girls think one 
human and approachable, and I love it but it is 
mighty hard, too. 1916 is all upset to-night with 
D's and E's on term papers and it is not easy to see 
the student's side and be a * faculty.' I suppose 
there's a lot I've got to learn about saving myself 
and not letting the girls bother me too much. But 
I want them to and in spite of the good times I have 
with them they are never the least bit free or over- 
step. They certainly are a nice bunch of girls." 

The crowning missionary event of Isabella's life 
was the Student Volunteer Convention in Kansas 
City in 1914. She, with two student delegates, 
represented Lake Erie College, and the three on 
their return were able to arouse a missionary inter- 
est the like of which had never been seen at the 
school. At chapel exercises and at other gatherings 
she reported the convention and then began a re- 
markable propaganda for missions. The work 
spread to the local church. " What do you sup- 
pose ? ' ' she wrote. "This coming Sunday evening I 

[78] 



ISABELLA MARION VOSBURGH 



occupy the pulpit of the Congregational Church. 
Maybe I am not petrified ! " Up to this time there 
had not been a single volunteer for missions in the 
college. Within ten days after her return from 
Kansas City two girls had volunteered. The move- 
ment was spreading and she, the soul of it, was 
speaking, planning, holding committee meetiugs and 
interviews. A campaign for recruiting for mission 
study classes was begun. The young teacher de- 
vised a clever plan by which each girl on the Mem- 
bership Committee of twelve appeared one morn- 
ing wearing a colored badge which bore the name 
of a month. The January girl was to get all her 
days enrolled, and so with the others. The scheme 
worked admirably in connection with a great clock 
poster reporting the progress of the campaign. 
Within two weeks ninety-five per cent of the college 
was enrolled. 

Through this season of high spiritual tension when 
her name was upon everyone's lips, she was enjoy- 
ing the exhilaration of unique and successful leader- 
ship. But there was no trace of self-confidence or 
complacency. Her inability to solve all the per- 
plexing questions brought to her was a matter of 
concern. "I fear I have always felt things and 
taken them for granted. I am trying to read and 
think more. My ! I certainly have it brought to 
my mind continually how worthless I am, for the 
girls come to talk with me and I know I do not meet 
their needs." 

The faculty of quick and thorough adjustment, 
the ability to see and feel instinctively the point of 

[79] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



contact, is a gift of untold value. But behind this 
must be the motive that seeks to awaken and stimu- 
late the best in a life. Isabella Vosburgh possessed 
both the gift and the motive. Added to this was a 
wide circle of interests, broad outlook on life, sanity 
and poise in judgments, love of nature, art, poetry, 
and music, abounding health of body and vigor of 
mind, and, permeating all, the outstanding quality 
of joyousness. What radium is in the family of 
metals she was to those who knew and loved her. 
"So fall of life and song," exclaimed one who 
played on the basket ball team with her. "That 
song was never tuned to a minor key. Her glorious 
nature, brimming with love for folks, passion for 
the service of Christ, tenderness for the smallest 
and weakest of God's children, was never checked 
in its overflow of life's loving cup. She went out 
not at the ebb of tide but at its highest flood. There 
was no ' moaning of the bar. ? " 

With a touch of mysticism her classmates some- 
how felt that she was present at their five-year re- 
union in June, 1915. Was she not there? Cer- 
tainly she was in the hearts of the girls as they 
assembled, as smiles and tears mingled as they paid 
tribute to her memory. "We can spare Izzy's 
bodily presence," said the class president, "more 
easily than most others because her spirit, that 
wonderful, joyful, imperishable spirit of hers, lives 
on so warmly in our midst. She is not with us, 
yet she will always be with us. " 

If this were all of immortality, would it not be 
abundantly worth while? 

[80] 



VII 

Forbes Robinson, of Cambridge 

Champion of the Average Man 



Scarce had he need to cast his pride or slough the dross of earth. 
E'en as he trod that day to God, so walked he from his birth — 
In siinpleness and gentleness and honor and clean mirth. 

So cup to lip in fellowship, they gave him welcome high, 

And made him place at the banquet board, the Strong Men 

ranged thereby, 
Who had done his work and held his peace and had no fear 

to die. 



Beyond the loom of the last lone star through outer darkness 

hurled, 
Further than rebel comet dared or hiving star-swarm swirled, 
Sits he with such as praise our God, for that they served his 

world. 

— Kipling. 



VII 

FORBES ROBINSON, OF CAMBRIDGE 

Champion of the Average Man 

" Think of the weak chaps, those who are 'out 
of the way, 7 those who are not naturally attractive, 
those who positively repel you. They often most 
need your sympathies, your prayers." It was this 
thinking of the "weak chaps" that made Forbes 
Eobinson a power in Cambridge. The following 
quotation is from a letter to a friend who had told 
him of his intention to take up school work until he 
was old enough to become ordained : 

"Do remember," he wrote, "how marvelously 
sacred a schoolmaster's work is. It is not enough 
to be able to play games— how I sometimes wish I 
could ! It is not enough to be able to teach Latin 
and Greek : a schoolmaster should be so much more. 
He represents the authority of God. He could be 
so much, he may be so little to boys. We can never 
enter a boy's life, into his deepest thoughts, his 
long, long thoughts, unless we, too, become little 
children, unless we become young and fresh and 
simple. Do not become a schoolmaster simply to 
fill up time, to have something to do." 

May these words catch the eye of some young 
school-teacher who has taken up teaching as one 

[83] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



clutches the branches of a tree to lift himself over a 
wall! 

There was little in the life of Forbes Eobinson to 
challenge the imagination of the average college 
student. His career was lacking in the dramatic 
element. To the crowd that loves its heroes of the 
gridiron, the mat, or the cinder track, this quiet, un- 
athletic figure would find no place in the pantheon 
of the quadrangle. 

But to the glory of Cambridge be it said that 
Forbes Eobinson came into his own. It is doubtful 
whether the average institution of learning could 
have appreciated such a man. But one enjoying 
the rootage of centuries of genuine scholarship and 
the finer things of life was able to bring to full 
fruitage such a rare product as this friend of the 
undergraduate. 

Eobinson was the son of an Anglican minister, 
the eleventh child in a family of thirteen. He was 
born in Keynsham, England, in November, 1867, 
and died in February, 1904. 

As a preparatory-school boy Forbes was reserved 
and retiring. He appears to have made little im- 
pression upon the life at Eossall where he was pre- 
pared for Cambridge. He did show at this time, 
however, a remarkable sense of humor which saved 
him from morbid tendencies. 

On entering upon his course at Christ's College his 
shrinking disposition rapidly gave way to a quiet, 
intense desire to get into close touch with men who 
were neglected by their fellows. His social powers 
quickly developed until his little attic room soon 

[84] 



FORBES ROBINSON 



became the center for the men of his class. As he 
settled into the life of the college he became recog- 
nized as a sort of human viaduct spanning the chasm 
between the lower and the higher classmen. Those 
who believe that nothing is of much value in college 
life except social opportunities, athletic triumphs, 
and the prestige of a cultural course, might well 
ponder this example of a simple, devoted man whose 
growing powers were almost wholly directed toward 
the strengthening of Christian influences in his own 
college. The deep and enduring impress left by 
Forbes Eobinson upon the life of Cambridge Uni- 
versity is too remarkable a record to be missed by 
students of our time. 

The idea of getting men together for the purpose 
of bringing out the best in them seems to have been 
the constant aim of Forbes Eobinson. College men 
are not in the habit of showing their most serious 
side to one another, but Eobinson had " an ex- 
haustive power of making friends with all sorts and 
conditions of men and an insatiable interest in all 
sides of college life." 

One might imagine that a man as serious-minded 
as Eobinson would be a damper upon the spontane- 
ous life of the college. But Forbes was a great fun 
lover and this made it possible for him to brighten 
what would have been a somber discussion. The 
tone of conversation in his room was never strained 
or confined to purely religious discussion. It had, 
however, a quality that was absolutely bare of that 
which was flippant, unkind, or vulgar. 

"I can see that little room under the roof," 

[85] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



writes a friend; "the picture on the wall of the 
dead saint floating on the dark water; the well- 
filled bookcase ; the table piled with volumes ; him- 
self flinging everything aside to greet one. It was 
almost with a feeling of awe that I sometimes 
climbed those stairs and entered into his presence.' ' 

Bobinson's interest in young men was as intense 
as it was remarkable. The arrogant indifference of 
upper classmen toward men in the lower classes 
was extremely distasteful to him. That which was 
to others a mere mass of uninteresting material was 
to him of the highest value. If a man was not good 
at games and very poor as a scholar, Forbes was 
sure to seek him out and make friends with him ; 
the man's lack constituted a challenge. If, on the 
other hand, a great athlete was winning plaudits, 
Forbes felt it an opportunity to win a strong man 
for Christ. 

He was a great student of the Apostle Paul and 
he took seriously Paul's idea of ambassadorship : 
"The more I think of what the words seem to 
mean, the more I am startled at the awful responsi- 
bility we have laid upon us." He liked the idea of 
being an attache of an embassy and arranging terms 
with men in order to bring them into touch with 
God. He believed that he had, working in him, 
the same power that Paul had, and that everyone 
may succeed in so far as he loves those whom God 
has committed to his servants. He felt that the 
man passed by was the man God honored. His 
creed was, "There is no average man." 

This belief was the secret of the amazing fund of 

[86] 



FORBES ROBINSON 



friendship which he built up through the years at 
Cambridge ; the love he bestowed upon men inspired 
even the most unpromising with the thought of the 
sacred, wonderful, and helpful possibilities of their 
own lives. It is probable that Eobinson was able 
to touch more men's lives in Cambridge than did 
any other graduate of the college. 

It must not be supposed that Eobinson was mak- 
ing a laboratory experiment. This was no philo- 
sophic study of friendship for a thesis : he was not 
exploiting the art of comradeship as the means for 
securing a degree. Nor was he cultivating friends 
for the sake of social and economic advantage in 
later life. 

Prayer was to Eobinson the most natural and 
potent spiritual relationship. He prayed for men 
for hours at a time. His entire thought about cer- 
tain men was turned into praying. He felt that 
through prayer he could do more for most men than 
by direct personal appeal. He was not the kind 
of man to force himself into a man's inner life ; 
he declined to invade the sacred precincts of 
personality. "As I grow older," Forbes said, "I 
grow more diffident, and now often, when I desire 
to see the truth come home to any man, I say to 
myself, ' If I have him here he will spend half an 
hour with me. Instead I will spend half an hour 
in prayer for him. 9 " In writing to a friend in 1893 
he gave this advice : " Now is the time to learn, to 
force yourself to learn, to pray — to pray not for a 
few minutes at a time, but to pray for an hour at a 
time, to get alone with yourself, to get alone with 

[87] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



your Maker. We shall not have to talk so much to 
others if we pray more for them." And to his 
brother, a doctor in South Africa, he wrote, "I 
cannot conceive this world without prayer. " 

A scene that will never be forgotten by those who 
were present was his welcome after a long absence 
and his return to college, a broken and dying man. 
It was Sunday evening and the room was crowded. 
Forbes was moving about among the various groups, 
full of brightness and cheer, but it was evident that 
he was suffering all the time. 

Soon after that memorable Sunday evening, Jan- 
uary 17, 1904, he rapidly failed. His pain became 
constant and he was removed with great difficulty 
to London. There, on Sunday morning, February 
7, he passed away soon after saying to his nurse, 
"If I am asleep in the morning, do not wake me." 
Long after the end had come a wonderful smile still 
lingered on his face. 

The letters of Forbes Eobinson form one of the 
most remarkable human documents in things spirit- 
ual that have been produced within a generation. 
They have been gathered into book form by his 
brother and the proceeds are being used for the sup- 
port of the boys' home in Cambridge which Forbes 
Eobinson helped to start. No student interested in 
personal work for Christ and the development of the 
life of the spirit ought to be without this volume. 

Perhaps these words to a friend may be consid- 
ered as being addressed to every college student in 
all the world : 

" I want you to be one of the best men that ever 

[88] 



FORBES ROBINSON 



lived — to see God and to reveal him to men. This 
is the burden of my prayers. My whole being goes 
out in passionate entreaty to God that he will give 
me what I ask. I am sure he will, for the request 
is after his own heart. I do not pray that you may 
' succeed in life ' or { get on ' in the world. I seldom 
even pray that you may love me better, or that I 
may see you oftener in this or any other world — 
much as I crave for this. But I ask, I implore, 
that Christ may be formed in you, that you may be 
made not in a likeness suggested by my imagina- 
tion, but in the image of God — that you may realize, 
not mine, but his ideal, however much that ideal 
may bewilder me, however little I may fail to recog- 
nize it when it is created. I hate the thought that 
out of love for me you should accept my presenta- 
tion, my feeble idea, of the Christ. I want God to 
reveal his Son in you independently of me — to give 
you a first-hand knowledge of him whom I am only 
beginning to see. Sometimes more selfish thoughts 
will intrude, but this represents the main current 
of my prayers ; and if the ideal is to be won from 
heaven by importunity, by ceaseless begging, I 
think I shall get it for you. " 



[89] 



VIII 

William Whiting Borden, of Yale 
The Man with a Million for the Kingdom 



Look forth and tell me what they do 

On Life's broad field. Oh, still they fight, 

The False forever with the True, 

The Wrong forever with the Right. 

And still God's faithful ones, as men 

Who hold a fortress strong and high, 

Cry out in confidence again, 

And find a comfort in the cry : 

" Hammer away, ye hostile hands, 

Your hammers break, God's anvil stands." 

— Samuel Valentine Cole. 



1 I am God's steward of my life 
My life is lived a day at a time 
Therefore I am God's steward of each day." 



VIII 

WILLIAM WHITING BORDEN, OF YALE 

The Man with a Million for the Kingdom 

Eey. Henry W. Frost, America's representative 
of the China Inland Mission, once asked a dis- 
tinguished Englishman, "Of all that you have 
seen in America what has impressed you most 1" 
Mr. Frost was expecting him to refer to the monu- 
ments of American ingenuity and enterprise, but he 
received this answer : " The sight of William Borden 
on his knees in the Yale Hope Mission of New 
Haven with his arm around a bum." 

On July 9, 1913, when word was received of the 
death of William Borden, in Cairo, Egypt, a Yale 
classmate wrote to a friend : " The unbelievable has 
apparently happened and I feel overwhelmed with 
a sense of the smallness of life, but there is one 
thing I know : If ever a man was guided by God's 
will in his life, that man was Bill. His life and his 
firm purpose to be a missionary have been an in- 
spiration to me for more than six years and I know 
his influence will never depart from me." 

Faced from earliest youth with the temptations 
incident to great wealth, this young man passed 
through the varying experiences of preparatory- 
school, college, and seminary life unscathed by the 
fires of impurity and unsullied by any form of selfish - 

[93] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



ness. Early in life lie had been impressed with the 
saying of Mr. Moody, "The world has yet to see 
what God can do with a fully surrendered man." 
It was Borden's desire to let God have his absolute 
way with him, and not one deliberate act of his from 
the time he arrived at years of discretion until his 
death at the age of twenty-five, was foreign to the 
attempt to live the completely surrendered and vic- 
torious life. In 1905, before entering Yale, he 
spent a year in foreign travel with Eev. Walter 
C. Erdman, of Korea. On his way home, he stopped 
in England and attended a meeting in London ad- 
dressed by Eev. E. A. Torrey. He took careful 
notes of the speaker's points and at that time 
registered a determination to dedicate his life. 
"Much helped and surrendered all," was the brief 
entry in his diary. 

Borden was born in Chicago, November 1, 1887, 
his parents being the late William B. and Mary 
deGarmo Whiting Borden. The influences of boy- 
hood tended toward a rapid development of re- 
ligious convictions and habits of daily Bible study 
and prayer. That the will of God might be 
wrought out in daily living was the constant ob- 
jective of his mother who devoted herself to the 
development of her son's character as few mothers 
have the opportunity or inclination to do. 

The year of foreign travel produced in the lad, 
who had just graduated from the Hill School of 
Pottstown, Pennsylvania, a passion to devote him- 
self to Christian work in the mission field. The re- 
volting rites of heathenism, the degraded social 

[94] 



WILLIAM WHITING BORDEN 



state, the misery, cruelty, and destitution following 
in the wake of heathen superstition, roused the in- 
nermost impulses of his being, and he decided, dur- 
ing that year, to devote his energies and his wealth 
to the missionary cause. After eight weeks on the 
mission field he wrote to his mother that he had 
decided to become a foreign missionary. On one 
occasion, when asked by a quizzical friend why he 
was wasting his life in such a cause, he replied 
with a piercing look, " You have never seen hea- 
thenism/' 

Borden was not of the pietistic type ; he had none 
of the look of an ascetic. Square-shouldered, with 
a rugged face, deep-set eyes, over-hanging eye- 
brows, and a shock of black hair, he was an ideal 
exponent of muscular and virile Christianity. He 
was a devotee of the pure and wholesome pleasures 
of life, fond of every kind of healthful recreation, 
an enthusiastic yachtsman and mountain climber. 
Football, baseball, tennis, and golf, had their at- 
tractions for him. When asked what form of exer- 
cise he enjoyed most, he answered, " Wrestling.' ' 
There was not the slightest tinge of cant or sancti- 
mony in his speech or actions. When leading in 
prayer or addressing a religious gathering, he was 
as simple as a child in his direct, forcible, and boy- 
ish way. He could be as serious as anyone when 
considering the great issues of life but at the same 
time there was an exuberance of spirits, a marvelous 
fund of joy that seemed to radiate from him. The 
contagion of his Christian optimism was manifest 
on all occasions. 

[95] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



Entering Yale University in 1905, he immediately 
took rank as a scholar and athlete. He was a well- 
known figure in the college gymnasium and on the 
athletic field. On the river he rowed number four 
in his class crew. His scholarship was so high that 
he became president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, 
and, in addition, received other academic honors. 

Borden was not one of those who believed that in 
order to be popular and " a good mixer " he would 
have to forego deep interest in religion while in col- 
lege. He immediately went into the Christian As- 
sociation and the Student Volunteer Band, throwing 
all his energies into various forms of definite Chris- 
tian work in which he soon became an acknowl- 
edged leader. For several years he was president 
of the Connecticut Valley Missionary Union and 
assisted by generous contributions of time and 
money in the building up of the great Yale Mission 
in Central China. He devoted much of his spare 
time to the formation of Bible study and mission 
classes and prayer groups. 

Discerning the needs of a certain section of New 
Haven practically unreached by the churches, he 
gathered a little prayer group in D wight Hall for 
the purpose of opening up the way for a gospel 
mission for the outcast men of the city. The result 
was the founding of the Yale Hope Mission which, 
for a number of years, has been reaching hundreds 
of the "down and out," and has perhaps done 
more to convince the men of Yale of the value of 
Christianity in individual regeneration than any 
other influence outside the campus. The Yale Hope 

[96] 



WILLIAM WHITING BORDEN 



Mission is perhaps the greatest earthly monument 
to Bill Borden's faith in men and in God. At the 
memorial service held in New Haven, many re- 
deemed men from the mission testified to Borden's 
wonderful personal help in bringing them to a 
knowledge of Jesus Christ. 

During vacations Borden took sufficient time for 
the recruiting of his physical powers but his heart 
was in the work of saving men, and, on some of the 
hottest days in midsummer, he could be found 
working with the men of the National Bible In- 
stitute, of New York City, preaching to the throngs 
in the city streets, and dealing personally with those 
who were thus reached. 

William Borden denied himself many personal 
indulgences in order that he might keep in line with 
the simplicities of the Christ life. He refused to be 
elected to positions in fraternities, clubs, and class 
organizations, for the sake of devoting himself more 
largely to Christian work. With a splendid for- 
tune at his command he never made a show of his 
wealth but in a thousand quiet ways used his money 
for the upbuilding of the Kingdom. He recognized 
his stewardship by keeping careful accounts of all 
his expenditures. He lived on a moderate allow- 
ance in college and his large gifts were made pos- 
sible by his economy. A missionary in his own 
name, he consecrated all that he had to God. He 
did not feel that if he gave one tenth he had a right 
to use the rest as he pleased. Ten tenths were the 
Lord's and he held every cent as a trust. This con- 
strained him to give practically all his income and 

[97] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



sometimes part of his principal. An extra dividend 
of two thousand dollars he distributed to various 
charities, keeping nothing for himself. 

A munificent giver, he never allowed anyone to 
feel that he was conferring a favor upon the 
recipient. The spirit of patronage was farthest 
from his thought. He was a director of a number 
of Christian enterprises and sat on the Boards of 
Management as the youngest of the directors. He 
joined in discussions freely but without appearance 
of self-conceit. "What he had to say was thought 
out carefully and his judgments were broad and 
sane. 

Of course it was to be expected that Borden 
would be a leader in the student activities of the 
theological seminary which he entered in the fall of 
1909. Princeton soon felt the force of his strong 
personality. His mother moved to Princeton and 
opened a spacious home where the most generous 
hospitality was extended to the professors and 
students of the institution. The first year of 
Borden's life at Princeton he was made a delegate to 
the World's Missionary Conference at Edinburgh, 
representing the China Inland Mission. It was in 
Princeton that he entered into closer missionary 
relations, visiting schools and colleges and extend- 
ing his influence throughout the churches. 

About this time he became a member of the 
American Committee of the Nile Press of Cairo and 
came into contact with the opportunities of the work 
in Egypt. After his graduation in 1912 he was 
engaged in evangelistic work in New York City, 

[98] 



WILLIAM WHITING BORDEN 



preaching upon the streets and doing office work in 
connection with the National Bible Institute. In 
the fall he was ordained to the gospel ministry in 
the Moody Church, Chicago, where he was a mem- 
ber, and for three months thereafter traveled as a 
representative of the Student Volunteer Movement. 

His deepest sympathies went out to those por- 
tions of the non- Christian world which were prac- 
tically unreached by any of the mission forces. 
He saw ten million Chinese Moslems for whom no 
provision had been made in the allotment of mis- 
sionary responsibility among the missionary so- 
cieties. He therefore determined to apply for serv- 
ice under the China Inland Mission and was 
assigned to work in Kan-su in western China. In 
December he sailed for Cairo in order to perfect 
himself in Arabic and study the Moslem literature. 
For three months he wrought and studied, dis- 
tributing thousands of tracts among the Moslems 
around Cairo and assisting with his money in the 
better equipment of the Nile Mission Press. Dur- 
ing the three months of his stay in Cairo he per- 
sonally superintended a house-to-house canvass with 
Christian literature. 

Suddenly he was attacked by spinal meningitis 
and died April 9, 1913. His body was laid to rest 
in the American Mission Cemetery at Cairo. 

Among the many great bequests left under his 
carefully drawn will was a quarter of a million dol- 
lars to the China Inland Mission. This fund will 
perpetuate the memory of his brief but wonder- 
ful career but will not make up for the loss of so 

[99] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



vital a personality. The remembrance of his life, 
however, as that of a burning and shining light, 
will be an inspiration to many a life and will bring 
scores to an espousal of the missionary cause. 

It was not William Borden's money that gave him 
standing. His simple and consecrated life, unspoiled 
by wealth, was a miracle in itself, and had William 
Borden been a poor boy God's way with him would 
have been as wonderful. The Church needs con- 
secrated money, but more than this it needs conse- 
crated men and women who live the life of Jesus as 
William Borden lived it. 



[100] 



IX 

Ion Keith Falconer, of Cambridge 

A Burning and a Shining Light 



Christ has his soldiers now. Though years have rolled 

Away, the warriors of the cross are strong 

To fight his battles, as the saints of old, 

Against oppression, tyranny, and wrong. 

And still amid the conflict, they can trace 

The Saviour's influence. Not the Holy Grail 

Which once as his remembrance was adored, 

But Christ himself is with them. For a veil 

Is lifted from their eyes, and face to face 

They meet the presence of the risen Lord. 

— W. H. Leathern. 



Give thanks for heroes that have stirred 
Earth with the wonder of a word. 
But all thanksgiving for the breed 
Who have bent destiny with deed — 
Souls of the high heroic birth, 
Souls sent to poise the shaken earth, 
And then called back to God again 
To make heaven possible for men. 

— Edwin Markham. 



IX 

ION KEITH FALCONER, OF CAMBRIDGE 

A Burning and a Shining Light 

Ion Keith Falconer, "son of a belted Earl," a 
member of the privileged class, with wealth, noble 
ancestors, and generations of culture behind him, 
was, according to the standards of the world, des- 
tined to a life of ease and luxurious indolence. In- 
stead of yielding, he turned his back upon every- 
thing that money and position could purchase for 
self. 

The third son of the Earl of Kintore, he was born 
in Edinburgh, July 5, 1856. As a boy, he was a 
devotee of outdoor sports. At the age of nineteen, 
he stood six feet three in his stockings and was an 
astonishing sight on one of the old-fashioned high 
bicycles, a monster wheel seven feet in diameter. 
At twenty years of age, he was president of the 
London Bicycle Club, winning against Oxford two 
new world's amateur records, the two-mile and the 
ten-mile races. At twenty-two, he was the cham- 
pion racer of Great Britain, defeating John Keen, 
the world's professional champion, in a five-mile 
race. His greatest race was for the amateur fifty- 
mile championship, which he won in two hours, 
forty-three minutes, and fifty-eight and three-fifth 
seconds, breaking all previous records by seven 

[103] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



minutes. Probably the greatest feat ever per- 
formed on a high-wheel bicycle was his riding 
one hundred and fifty miles, from Cambridge to 
Bournemouth, in one day. 

In thirteen days he rode from the northeastern 
peninsula of Scotland to the southwestern point of 
England. He was the first man to ride from end 
to end of the island, and his progress was marked 
by a series of little red flags on a large map in the 
Harrow School, of which he was a graduate and its 
greatest hero. 

With his splendid intellect, his remarkable pow- 
ers of concentration, and his talent for hard plug- 
ging, he was able to master anything to which he 
set his mind. One of his hobbies was shorthand, 
which he learned while at Harrow, without the aid 
of a teacher. For years he kept up a correspond- 
ence with Isaac Pitman, the inventor of one of 
the methods of stenography. All of these letters 
were in shorthand. When twenty-eight years of 
age he was asked to write the article on shorthand 
for the " Encyclopedia Britannica." This article 
is still regarded as standard. 

To his other accomplishments he added great 
linguistic achievements. His knowledge of Hebrew 
was remarkable. He enjoyed writing post cards to 
his professor in this language, translating "Lead, 
Kindly Light," as a recreation. At the close of his 
course, the highest honor in the gift of Cambridge 
University in Hebrew was conferred upon him. 
He was also an authority on the Septuagint, the 
oldest Greek translation of the Old Testament, and 

[104] 



ION KEITH FALCONER 



he enjoyed the exercise of clearing up difficult 
points. "Send me," he wrote to a friend, u some 
Septuagint nuts to crack. " While at Cambridge 
he took up the study of Arabic, with no particular 
objective, except that he liked hard languages. 
After his final examinations at Cambridge, his 
whole attention was turned to Arabic and he took a 
special course at Leipzig in order to perfect himself. 

As a boy, Keith Falconer felt the stirrings of 
missionary zeal. At seventeen years of age, he was 
given by his friend, Mr. F. N". Charrington, a book 
called " Following Fully." In a letter to his home 
people the boy said : " It is about a man who works 
among the cholera people in London so hard that 
he at last succumbs and dies. But every page is 
full of Jesus Christ, so that I like it ... I 
must go and do the same soon : how, I don't know." 

He entered heartily into evangelistic work while 
yet in Cambridge, and was associated with Mr. 
Charrington at Barnwell and Mile End Eoad. Here 
he wrought earnestly, reaching hundreds of poor 
and outcast. It was here that he caught the vision 
of world need. In a letter dated June 12, 1881, he 
wrote : 

"It is overwhelming to think of the vastness of 
the harvest field when compared with the indolence, 
indifference, and unwillingness on the part of most 
so-called Christians, to become, even in a moderate 
degree, laborers in the same. I take the rebuke to 
myself. ... To enjoy the blessings and happi- 
ness God gives, and never to stretch out a helping 
hand to the poor and the wicked, is a most horrible 

[105] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



thing. When we come to die, it will be awful for 
us, if we have to look back on a life spent purely 
on self, but, believe me, if we are to spend our life 
otherwise, we must make up our minds to be thought 
'odd 7 and ' eccentric' and ' unsocial,' and to be 
sneered at and avoided. . . . The usual center 
is self, the proper center is God. If, therefore, one 
lives for God, one is out of center or eccentric, with 
regard to the people who do not." 

It was shortly after this that he met General 
(Chinese) Gordon who offered him various posi- 
tions, such as that of attache to Lord Dufferin, then 
Minister to Turkey, or Secretary of Legation at 
St. Petersburg. General Gordon was undoubtedly 
testing the spirit of Falconer, for he added, u If 
you will not, then come to me in Syria to the Her- 
mitage." 

Keith Falconer had attracted the attention of 
Oriental scholars and was consequently in a posi- 
tion to secure a post of dignity and honor in the 
intellectual world. At twenty-nine he was elected 
professor of Arabic at Cambridge, to succeed Eob- 
ertson Smith. He had spent a few months in Egypt 
and the lure of the desert was in his blood. The 
study of Arabic was engrossing his thought. He 
wrote, U I expect to peg away at the Arabic dic- 
tionary till my last day." 

His marriage to Miss Gwendolen Bevan, in March, 
1884, was followed by a journey to Italy. The 
Falconers then settled at Cambridge where Keith 
studied and lectured until the spring of 1885, when 
he definitely decided to apply for a commission to 

[106] 



ION KEITH FALCONER 



the Foreign Mission Committee of the Free Church 
of Scotland. 

He had been very much impressed by a paper on 
Arabia by General Haig. It was then that his soul 
flamed up, and in that light he saw his Saviour 
beckoning him to rise up and go. He had been 
seeking the hardest task on earth and he realized 
now that the evangelization of the Moslem was the 
most difficult work of all. Feeling that a medical 
course would be desirable, he entered with zeal 
upon the study of medicine, and on completion of 
the course, went to Arabia on a visit of investiga- 
tion. 

Within a few months he and his wife returned to 
England with a full report upon the situation. In 
May, 1886, he attended the meeting of the General 
Assembly of the Free Church and delivered an ad- 
dress on Mohammedanism. It stirred the Assembly 
to the depths. He asked for a second missionary, a 
medical man, and offered to pay his salary in addi- 
tion to paying the expenses of himself and wife. He 
also agreed to defray the entire cost of the erection 
of the mission house, laying on the altar not only 
his wealth of learning but his entire fortune. He 
addressed large gatherings in the cities of Scotland, 
arousing the greatest missionary enthusiasm by his 
burning appeals. The following is an illustration 
of his direct approach to an audience : 

11 Perhaps you are content with giving annual 
subscriptions and occasional donations and taking 
a weekly class ? Why not give yourselves, money, 
time, and all, to the foreign field? Our own coun- 

[107] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



try is bad enough, but comparatively many must, 
and do, remain to work at home, while very few are 
in a position to go abroad. Yet how vast is the 
foreign mission field ! ' The field is the world. ' 
Ought you not to consider seriously what your duty 
is ? The heathen are in darkness and we are asleep. 
Perhaps you try to think that you are meant to re- 
main at home and induce others to go ; by sub- 
scribing money, sitting on committees, speaking at 
meetings, and praying for missions, you will be do- 
ing the most you can to spread the gospel abroad. 
Not so. By going yourself you will produce a ten- 
fold more powerful effect. You can give and pray 
for missions wherever you are; you can send de- 
scriptive letters to the missionary meetings, which 
will be more effective than secondhand anecdotes 
gathered by you from others, and you will help the 
committees finely by sending them the results of 
your experience. Then, in addition, you will have 
added your own personal example and taken your 
share of the real work. We have a great and im- 
posing war office, but a very small army. You have 
wealth snugly vested in the funds ; you are strong 
and healthy ; you are at liberty to live where you 
like and occupy yourself as you like. While vast 
continents are shrouded in almost utter darkness, 
and hundreds of millions suffer the horrors of 
heathenism or of Islam, the burden of proof lies 
upon you to show that the circumstances in which 
God has placed you were meant by him to keep you 
out of the foreign mission field.' ? 

On November 8 of that year, Ion Keith Falconer 

[108] 



ION KEITH FALCONER 



and his wife sailed with Dr. Cowen, the surgeon, on 
the Austrian steamship, "Berenice." A suitable 
site in Aden was out of the question, and it had 
been decided to put up a mission house in Sheikh 
Othman, eight miles from Aden. It had been Keith 
Falconer's hope to gather the large numbers of cast- 
away Somali children into an industrial orphanage 
and bring them up in the faith of Christ, teach them 
to work with their hands, and eventually to train up 
a staff of native evangelists and teachers. He was 
also influenced in the selection of this town by 
reason of its closer contact with the Bedouin, re- 
moved as it was from the influence of the non-Chris- 
tian Europeans living in the larger city. The new 
missionaries failed to secure a suitable dwelling, 
but they obtained a large native hut which they 
remodeled in the emergency. Work was begun on 
the mission house, and evangelistic tours were made 
into the interior. 

On January 11, 1887, Keith Falconer wrote, 
" Our temporary quarters are very comfortable and 
the books look very nice. " Just a month from that 
time, Keith Falconer staggered into the hut after a 
long horseback journey and threw himself upon the 
bed. The high fever, which continued for three 
days, was the first attack. Seven others followed in 
quick succession. In May he wrote to his mother : 
"This rather miserable shanty in which we are 
compelled to live is largely the cause of our fevers. 
We expect to begin living in the new house about 
June 1." This letter did not reach her until after 
the cable flashed the news that her son was dead. 

[109] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



On the morning of May 11 they came to wake 
him. " One glance told all. He was lying on his 
back with his eyes half open. The whole attitude 
and expression indicated a sudden and painless end, 
as if it had taken place during sleep, there being no 
indication whatever of his having tried to move or 
speak." 

The work went on, though the leader fell. A 
school for rescued slaves was begun. More mis- 
sionaries were sent out, and the Keith Falconer 
Mission is a living monument to his work. 

Memorial services were held throughout Great 
Britain and many calls for the strong and brave to 
take the place of the fallen soldier were uttered. 
These appeals were effective. Eleven divinity stu- 
dents of the New College, Edinburgh, offered them- 
selves that year for foreign mission work. 

11 The Son of God goes forth to war, 
A kingly crown to gain ; 
His blood-red banner streams afar ; 
Who follows in his train ? ' ' 



[110] 



Samuel John Mills, of Williams 

Who Made a Haystack Famous 



11 My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in 
my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that 
can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me to be 
a witness for me, and I have fought His battles, who 
now will be iny re warder." ... So he passed over 
and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other 
side. — Bunyan. 



I served in a great cause : 

I served without heroism, without virtue, and with no 
promises of success, with no near destination of 
treasure ; 

I was on the march, I contained that which persevered 
me to ends unseen, no footsore night relaxed my 
pace ; 

There was only the press of invisible hands, only gray- 
brown eyes of invitation. 

Only my franchised heart to fuel the fires to suns. 

— Traubel. 



SAMUEL JOHN MILLS, OF WILLIAMS 

Who Made a Haystack Famous 

Samuel John Mills, father of the still more fa- 
mous Samuel John Mills, Jr., was a graduate of 
Yale iu the class of 1764. His was a race of minis- 
ters. Three of his uucles were clergymen, two of his 
sisters married ministers, and his younger brother, 
Edmund, followed in his footsteps. Until his death 
in his ninetieth year, he was the first and only pas- 
tor of the Congregational Church at Torringford, 
Connecticut, and was known throughout the coun- 
tryside as " Father Mills." He was a man of 
gigantic physical proportions and dignified bear- 
ing. Throughout the State of Connecticut he was 
known as an eloquent and persuasive preacher. 

To such a father young Mills owed his keen orig- 
inality, analytical faculty, administrative ability, 
power of initiative, breadth of spirit, serious pur- 
pose, and depth of sympathy. Father Mills im- 
planted in the heart of his son those impulses which 
soon bore remarkable fruitage. When the son an- 
nounced to his father his decision to become a mis- 
sionary the latter asked in surprise, "Why, my 
son, where did you learn to be a missionary? " " I 
learned it," replied the boy, "of my father." 

The psychology of young Mills's religious devel- 

[113] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



opment is an interesting study. Nothing was 
known in those days of the natural methods of 
Christian nurture, and it was supposed that every 
life must pass through a soul-racking period of spir- 
itual agony with strong crying and conviction of 
sin. Mills's nature was sensitive and impression- 
able, and when in 1798 the religious interest among 
the young people of Torringford was deeply stirred, 
he suffered keenly in spirit, but was allowed to be- 
lieve that the divine favor had passed him by. 
While other members of the family were rejoicing 
in new-found peace poor Samuel remained in the 
darkness of spiritual anguish. 
* It appears that this mood passed away after he 
had taken charge of a farm left him by a relative. 
He became one of the master spirits in the country 
sports of the young people and was ambitious and 
light-hearted. Tradition asserts that at a party 
around a farmhouse fireplace one evening a com- 
pany of young people were cracking nuts and eat- 
ing apples, when some one decided to tease Samuel, 
and suggested that the company sing, 

" Hark from the tombs a doleful sound." 

This threw young Mills into a state of melancholy 
which could not be shaken off. The account of his 
leaving home for Morris Academy, in the autumn 
of 1801, when he told his mother that he wished he 
had never been born, is familiar to students of his 
life. "I have seen to the very bottom of hell,' ' he 
assured her. 
His heavy-heartedness again passed away and he 

[114] 



SAMUEL JOHN MILLS 



seems to have had a vision of the glory of God and 
realizations of his choice as one of the elect. " Oh, 
glorious Sovereignty, " he cried as the light broke 
upon his soul. Three months later he voiced the 
belief that he was saved, although he was often 
troubled in after life over the imperfect evidences of 
his acceptance. In his nineteenth year he quaintly 
told his father that he " could not conceive of any 
course in which to pass the rest of his days that 
would prove so pleasant as to communicate the gos- 
pel of salvation to the poor heathen." One of his 
closest friends declares that, "like Elisha, the Spirit 
of the Lord fell upon Samuel Mills while he was in 
the field at the plough, " and that if that field could 
be located it would be appropriate to cut this in- 
scription on one of the rough bowlders, "The Birth- 
place of American Foreign Missions. " 

Not alone to his father must we look for those in- 
fluences leading him to consecrate his life to the 
program of Christ for a redeemed world. He was 
always close to his mother in all his hopes and 
aspirations, bringing her his difficulties and doubts, 
and learning from her lips the great missionary 
stories of Eliot, Brainerd, and other heroes of the 
cross. Once he overheard her say, " I have conse- 
crated this child to the service of God as a mission- 
ary. " After he announced his decision to go to the 
foreign field his mother took his letter to a friend 
and with tears streaming down her cheeks ex- 
claimed, " Little did I know when I dedicated this 
child to God what it was going to cost and where- 
unto it would end." 

[115] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



Contrary to precedent in the Mills family, Samuel 
entered Williams College rather than Yale the Alma 
Mater of many of his kinsfolk. Both colleges suf- 
fered from the destructive influences at work in the 
intellectual, moral, and religious life of Europe and 
America. The skepticism and moral bankruptcy 
of the French Bevolution had eaten into the life 
of these institutions. Atheistic clubs flourished. 
Students who became interested in Christianity 
were ridiculed and abused. Williams was at lowest 
ebb spiritually. Mnety-three men were graduated 
in the first six classes and there had been only seven 
professing Christians in them all. In three of the 
classes not a single Christian could be found. 

But in 1798 and 1799 God's Spirit wrought 
mightily throughout New England and revivals 
spread through churches and colleges. In the 
spring of 1801 four young men who had been 
recently converted entered Williams. They held 
prayer meetings and did all in their power to deepen 
the religious life of the college. The spiritual 
awakening of 1805 and 1806 was the result. 

Young Mills entered Williams as a freshman 
in April, 1806, at the age of twenty-three. His ap- 
pearance was not prepossessing. His voice was 
husky, his eye dull, and his complexion sallow. 
He did not seem to have that magnetic personality 
which enhances so largely the possibilities of 
leadership. But he did possess the dynamic of an 
inner enthusiasm and he threw himself with the ut- 
most joy and fervor into the religious life of the in- 
stitution. The practice of religion in college in 

[116] 



SAMUEL JOHN MILLS 



those days was a militant one. A student must 
needs fight for his faith. One of Mills's associates, 
Algernon S. Bailey, was so aggressive in his efforts 
to reach the unconverted that the students nearly 
mobbed him. Mills's own experience was not 
pleasant. U I hope," he wrote in his diary, under 
date of June 25, 1806, " I shall have an opportunity 
to deliver an address to the throne of grace to-day 
without molestation." 

Prayer meetings were the marked feature of the 
revival and were continued throughout the summer 
of 1806. On Wednesday afternoons certain students 
gathered for prayer under a clump of willow trees 
south of the West College. On Saturday afternoons 
these students met in a thick grove of maples in 
Sloan's Meadow north of the college buildings. 
One hot day in August two sophomores and three 
freshmen met in the maple grove. Their names 
were Samuel J. Mills, James Eichards, Francis L. 
Eobbins, Harvey Loomis, and Byram Green. For 
a while they held their meeting under the maples. 
But a storm threatened in the west and they retired 
amidst the flashing of the lightning to a neighbor- 
ing haystack. Sheltered thus from the storm they 
continued their devotions and the conversation 
turned on the pitiful condition of the peoples of 
Asia, which had been brought to their attention 
through the regular course in geography. The East 
India Company had been opening up this continent 
and much had been read in letters and in the public 
prints concerning the frightful degradation, poverty, 
and suffering in these lands of darkness. Then 

[117] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



came the great moment, the luminous hour from 
which has radiated such powerful influences into 
every corner of the world. 

A mission band of boys was once questioned as to 
their knowledge of Samuel J. Mills. The leader 
asked, " Where was he born?" " Under a hay- 
stack," replied the boy. Some one has pertinently 
remarked that it was not Mills but the American 
Board of Foreign Missions that was born under that 
haystack. But a greater enterprise than any one 
mission board came into being that rainy afternoon 
— the whole enterprise of American Foreign Mis- 
sions, the real beginning of vital American Chris- 
tianity. 

There was one " conscientious objector" in that 
company. Mills proposed sending the gospel to 
the heathen and as he waxed enthusiastic he said, 
"We can do it if we will." One of the sophomores 
declared that the time was not ripe, that the mis- 
sionaries would be murdered, that a new crusade 
must be inaugurated before the gospel could be sent 
to such miserable creatures as Turks and Arabs. 
Then Mills asked that they might all kneel in 
prayer, and, one by one, the young Christians of- 
fered up fervent appeals to God for the non-Chris- 
tian world. Mills cried, "Oh, God, strike down 
the arm with the red artillery of heaven that shall 
be raised against the herald of the cross ! " 

These outdoor prayer meetings were kept up un- 
til the cold weather when an old lady invited the 
boys to come to her kitchen for their gatherings. 
With the same zest that college students to-day dis- 

[118] 



SAMUEL JOHN MILLS 



cuss winning teams Mills and his colleagues were 
constantly conferring on the question of taking the 
gospel to foreign lands. 

Mills's devotion to religious work was so keen 
that his scholarship suffered, and he was deeply dis- 
appointed when in 1809 he failed to receive an 
assignment for graduation. The conscientious ob- 
jector to missions delivered an oration on " The 
Disadvantages of Continuing Too Long on the 
Stage, " while poor Mills passed from the room and 
was heard to say in a low voice, "Well, if God be 
for me it makes no matter who is against me." 

The "Society of Brethren, " organized in the 
northwest room of the lower story of "Old Bast," 
is too well known to require details in this brief 
sketch. Its object, according to its constitution, was 
"to effect in the persons of its members a mission 
or missions to the heathen,' ' and each member was 
expected to "hold himself in readiness to go on a 
mission when and where duty may call." The 
"Brethren" entered zealously into plans for arous- 
ing missionary interest. They published mission- 
ary sermons, they visited ministers, sought their 
cooperation, and, through public addresses and pri- 
vate conversations, endeavored to develop a sense 
of responsibility. Mills was especially successful in 
enlisting men of commanding influence. Other col- 
leges were visited and societies similar to the Society 
of Brethren were formed. Efforts were made to in- 
terest Dartmouth and Union colleges but without 
success. During his junior year Mills made a trip 
to Yale and there formed a close friendship with 

[119] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



Asahel Nettleton, who afterwards became the great 
evangelist. 

The movement started by Mills and his friends at 
the haystack was an enterprise of promotion. It 
was not organized to send missionaries but to arouse 
among ministers, churches, and Christians generally, 
a missionary interest. It was a project started first 
of all by college men rather than by those Christian 
leaders in the churches who would naturally be 
supposed to begin such a work. President Mark 
Hopkins wrote : "That such a movement should 
have originated with the undergraduates of a college 
at a time when there was so much in the state of the 
world to excite the youthful imagination and fire 
ambition and distract the mind, when Europe was 
quaking under the tread of the man of destiny, and 
this couutry was fearfully excited by political divi- 
sions, can only be accounted for by the special 
agency of the Spirit of God." 

After graduation Mills went to Yale for a time, 
earnestly desirous that the u divine ferment " should 
permeate the college which, next to his own, was 
dearest to his heart. He was unsuccessful in kin- 
dling an enthusiasm but his meeting with the Ha- 
waiian waif, Obookiah, was dramatic and provi- 
dential. This poor foreigner was without a place 
to eat or sleep. He had drifted across the water in 
a sailing vessel and was sitting on the threshold of 
one of the college buildings weeping because " no- 
body gave him learning. " Mills met him and took 
him to his own home where his mother treated the 
stranger as her own child and taught him the Cate- 

[120] 



SAMUEL JOHN MILLS 



cliism. It was through Obookiah's love for his 
homeland and his desire that it should be evangel- 
ized that the missionaries, Bingham and Thurston, 
were sent to the Sandwich Islands and the way was 
wonderfully opened for them to bring the gospel to 
the islanders. As Mills's biographer, T. C. Eich- 
ards, says, "The cry of the Hawaiian waif at the 
door of Yale College had been answered. " 

It was Samuel J. Mills who made possible the 
answering of that cry. Mr. Eichards traces the line 
of spiritual descent from Mills to Booker T. Wash- 
ington in this way: " Through his protege, Oboo- 
kiah, Mills set in motion the forces resulting in the 
mission to the Sandwich Islands. One of the mis- 
sionaries sent there was the father of Samuel C. 
Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute, and 
Booker Washington was 'the most remarkable 
product of Hampton.' " Thus Tuskeegee Institute, 
the monument to Booker Washington's efforts for 
the uplift of the negro, runs lines far back in history 
to the haystack of Williams College. " What hath 
God wrought l" 

In 1813 Mills had graduated from Andover Semi- 
nary and was engaged, with John F. Schermerhorn, 
in a long and difficult journey through the South- 
west in the interests of the missionary societies of 
Connecticut and Massachusetts. In the Connecticut 
Evangelical Magazine of July, 1813, is found an in- 
teresting letter from Mills, telling of his missionary 
labors in Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, 
Louisiana, and South Carolina, also a paragraph from 
a Charleston paper dated June 3, 1813, in which is 

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HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



this statement: " Since leaving New Orleans Mr. 
Mills has suffered much hardship and fatigue. On 
account of disturbances near the coast he was obliged 
to take a circuit of nearly three hundred miles 
through the wilderness, exposed to numerous dan- 
gers and severe privations. He is now on his return 
to New England with much interesting information 
for the missionary societies and much experience 
of the divine goodness. During his tour Mr. Mills 
has distributed seven hundred Bibles among the 
destitute. " 

After a year's absence in which he traveled nearly 
three thousand miles and endured unnumbered 
hardships, Mr. Mills reached his home in Torring- 
ford. The following year New England listened to 
his impassioned appeals that the great lands of the 
West and the Southwest might be possessed for 
Christ. After a second home missionary journey he 
issued a fifty -page booklet entitled, " A Correct View 
of That Part of the United States Which Lies West of 
the Alleghany Mountains with Eespect to Eeligion 
and Morals." It was a revelation to the East of 
the needs and opportunities of a practically un- 
known territory. He and his colleague went 
through the East delivering addresses and sound- 
ing a bugle call to home missionary effort. The 
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
thereupon organized the Board of Home Missions 
in 1816. It was Mills and his companions who 
sowed the seed of home missions, calling the atten- 
tion of the churches and the missionary societies to 
the magnificent opportunities before them. ' ' The 

[122] 



SAMUEL JOHN MILLS 



Protestant invasion and occupation of the Louisiana 
Purchase was largely due to Samuel J. Mills. He 
therefore deserves the title ' Home Missionary States- 
man.' v 

At the end of his second home missionary journey 
lie announced that the immediate need of the new 
country was seventy-six thousand Bibles, persuaded 
friends to write essays upon the need of furnishing 
Bibles to destitute communities, and as the result the 
smaller Bible societies of the East met in New York 
City on May 8, 1816, and organized The American 
Bible Society. Historians are now agreed that the 
influence of Samuel J. Mills was foremost in bring- 
ing about the organization of this national society. 

Think of this young man, only thirty-three years of 
age, becoming a national figure in the Christian life 
of America ! According to Lyman Beecher it was 
Mills's " profound wisdom, indefatigable industry, 
and unparalleled executive power that made him 
the primary agent in this movement." 

In June, 1815, Mills and five other candidates 
were ordained at Newburyport. The sermon was 
preached by Dr. Samuel Worcester, of Salem. At 
the close of the fervent missionary appeal entitled 
" Paul on Mars Hill, Or, A Christian Survey of the 
Pagan World, " the Lord's Supper was administered 
and the six young missionaries were given the bene- 
dictions of God's people. 

On the twenty-third of October all except Mills 
sailed for Ceylon. For two years he was traveling 
through the cities of the East conferring with prom- 
inent men concerning his missionary projects. For 

[123] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



some time Mills was the guest of Dr. E. D. Griffen, 
former president of Bowdoin, who was then living 
at Newark, New Jersey. Dr. Griffen declared 
afterwards: "I have been in positions to know 
that from the councils formed in that secret con- 
clave (referring to Mills and his associates at Will- 
iams), or from the mind of Mills himself, arose 
the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
Missions, The American Bible Society, the United 
Foreign Missionary Society, The African School 
under the care of the Synod of New Jersey, besides 
all the impetus given to domestic missions and the 
Colonization Society and to the general cause of 
benevolence in both hemispheres." 

Mills was incessantly at work stimulating activity 
along various lines, suggesting to men who were 
making history, the fertile, germinal thoughts that 
were to blossom in future ages and in distant lands. 
He made what in our day would be called a survey 
of conditions in New York City, calling from house 
to house. Of fifty families whom he visited one day 
in Orange Street, not one third were able to read a 
Bible if they had one. He told of how a married 
woman of thirty, on being asked whether she had 
a Bible in the house, exclaimed in surprise: "A 
Bible ! What do you do with a Bible ? " And this 
was in the heart of New York in 1816 ! 

The needs of sailors touched his heart, and he 
consulted with men who in the following year or- 
ganized a Marine Bible Society. 

About this time a plan for a mission to South 
America developed in his mind. He felt that the 

[124] 



SAMUEL JOHN MILLS 



Presbyterian Church was not doing her share in 
foreign missions. She had no Foreign Mission 
Board of her own and he was determined that this 
Church with her great resources should be set at 
work for foreign missions. In Philadelphia the 
General Assembly of 1818 was addressed by Mills 
and approved the plan of forming a foreign mis- 
sionary society. Writing home to his father con- 
cerning this good news Mills said, with character- 
istic modesty : " I would not intimate that I have 
been the prime mover in this business. If I have 
been permitted with others to aid the object, it is 
enough. " 

The busy brain and heart of this man soon be- 
came interested in the condition of the slaves of 
the South. He interested himself in the formation 
of the Colonization Society, the object of which was 
to send negroes from America to Africa for the 
purpose of ameliorating their condition. Writing 
to his father he said, "I never engaged in an ob- 
ject which had laid me under so vast a responsi- 
bility." Money was borrowed through generous 
friends to pay the expenses of the expedition, and 
Mills, with his colleague, Ebenezer Burgess, pre- 
pared to visit England for information and assist- 
ance, and go from there to Africa. In crossing they 
encountered a severe storm in the English Channel 
which nearly wrecked the vessel. The captain had 
given up all for lost. A boat was launched which 
was quickly overturned, and death for all seemed 
inevitable. Burgess and Mills stood calm and col- 
lected while the ship's company crowded around 

[125] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



them for a prayer service. Suddenly a strong cur- 
rent caught their ship, carried it over the reef into 
deep water, and to safety. 

After meeting certain persons in England who 
lent them every assistance, the missionaries pro- 
ceeded to Africa and entered into many " palavers " 
with native kings and princes. Mills's fiery spirit 
was compelled to exercise great control, and he 
wrote, " Patience may almost have her perfect work 
on the dispositions and hearts of those who wait on 
men so slothful in business. " Weeks passed and he 
then embarked for the United States by way of 
England leaving the fever-laden air of the west coast 
rivers for latitudes more stimulating. But the seeds 
of death had already been sown in the constitution 
of this missionary hero and tuberculosis suddenly 
declared itself. The disease developed rapidly and 
his fellow voyagers realized with a shock that his 
end was approaching. 

Before the voyage was half finished on June 15, 
1818, without sigh or moan, he calmly folded his 
hands as if in prayer and entered into the "rest 
that remains for the people of God." 

<|> kL- vj> vj>- -vj^ v£-» 

It is thirty- nine years later. A great throng is 
standing in the maple grove near the site of the 
old haystack. A ten-acre plot has been purchased, 
dedicated to the memory of the founders of Amer- 
ican missions, and named "Mission Park." On 
commencement day, as the rising sun mounts above 
the encircling hills, gilding the leaves of the maples 
in the valley of the Hoosac, the first of the annual 

[126] 



SAMUEL JOHN MILLS 



missionary services is held on that sacred spot. 
This sunrise meeting is still a feature of the com- 
mencements at Williams College. 

To that hallowed ground also came student vis- 
itors from every country of the globe. In 1897 the 
World's Christian Student Federation held its 
second annual meeting around the granite shaft 
which now commemorates the haystack prayer 
meeting. Thirteen nations and five continents 
were represented. After the story of the first meet- 
ing had been graphically recited these men of many 
nationalities made the mountains ring with their 
shouts of "We can do it if we will ! " Germans 
and French, Hollanders and Swiss, Chinese and 
Japanese, forgot their differences, and each in his 
native tongue sang out that militant sentiment, 
"We can do it if we will ! " 

Though his body lies in an unmarked grave 
within the depths of the restless sea, the soul of 
Mills is living on in the work to which he had 
dedicated his life. We, who are called to continue 
that work, can hear him say, "Though you and I 
are very little beings, we must not rest satisfied 
until our influence is felt in the remotest corner of 
this ruined world.' ' 



[127] 






XI 

Elijah Kellogg, of Bowdoin 
The College Man Who Was a Boy at Eighty 



There is no age : the swiftly passing hour 
That measures out our days of pilgrimage 
And breaks the heart of every summer flower, 
Shall find again the child's soul in the sage. 

There is no age, for youth is the divine ; 
And the white radiance of the timeless soul 
Burns like a silver lamp in that dark shrine 
That is the tired pilgrim's ultimate goal. 

— Eva Gore-Booth. 



XI 

ELIJAH KELLOGG, OF BOWDOIN 

The College Man Who Was a Boy at Eighty 

One Sunday afternoon in 1900 a little, wizened, 
bronzed, old man with a vivid, mobile face and eyes 
like live coals, stood before the students of Bowdoin 
College. The president, William De Witt Hyde, 
in presenting him, said : "It was a sad day for the 
children of Israel when there arose a king in Egypt 
that knew not Joseph. It will be a sad day for 
Bowdoin College when there arises a generation of 
students who know not Elijah Kellogg. ,, 

Elijah Kellogg lived his entire life under the 
shadow of Bowdoin. He never held a college of- 
fice, he received no material benefits from the in- 
stitution, but from the day he came to Brunswick 
in the fall of 1836 and presented himself, as he 
put it, "a sedate and diffident youth, between the 
two maple trees, which like friendship and mis- 
fortune flung their shadows over the steps of Mas- 
sachusetts Hall, and sued for admission to Bowdoin 
College, " to that winter's day in 1901 when his 
body was laid to rest, there was not one moment 
when Bowdoin was not lavishing its respect and 
affection upon the little tense figure now known as 
Bowdoin' s greatest campus hero. 

[131] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



Elijah Kellogg' s father was Eev. Elijah Kellogg, 
pastor of the Second Congregational Church of Port- 
land, Maine. His parents had said, " We must have 
a prophet in the family, " and the name of Elijah 
befitted both father and son. On the outbreak of 
the Eevolution, Elijah Kellogg, Sr., buckled on his 
belt, snatched up his gun and powder horn, and 
marched with the patriots to Bunker Hill. Behind 
him in the line of descent were men who had borne 
the banner of the cross with Eichard the Lion- 
Hearted and had fought in the Wars of the Eoses 
for civil and religious rights. 

The young Elijah had the hot blood of patriots 
running in his veins. No wonder he could tell 
thrilling stories of the men whose doughty exploits 
have illuminated the pages of history. Kellogg was 
a hero worshiper and when he grew up, it was little 
wonder that he could write those declamations 
familiar to every schoolboy, " Spartacus to the 
Gladiators," "Virginius to the Eoman Army," 
and other classical speeches. There was something 
elemental about Elijah Kellogg, a quality that might 
well be emulated by the young men of to-day. His 
ideal hero was not a brawny habitue of gymnasiums 
or a champion of the gridiron. He admired the 
horny-handed, big-hearted pioneer who fought his 
way through almost impenetrable obstacles, rising 
superior to all difficulties and mastering all situa- 
tions. As be often phrased it, he liked "the man 
who never got whipped, the white man who could 
outwit an Indian, or outhug a bear, or outrun a 
pack of wolves, the man who could fell a forest and 

[132] 






ELIJAH KELLOGG 



clear a farm and sow his corn with hostile savages 
behind every tree.' 7 He liked also the sailor who 
could outride the fiercest storm and bring his vessel 
into port rudderless and with sails whipped to rib- 
bons, water-logged but victorious. 

An amusing story might be told of a certain Sun- 
day morning. Young Elijah had a great faculty 
for getting into serious scrapes and escaping from 
them with great facility. On this particular Sun- 
day he went swimming, and the fascination of the 
water held him until after service. " Where have 
you been?" asked his irate father. Without hesi- 
tation the boy answered that he had been to the 
Methodist meeting. He was a little tired of his 
father's sermons and wanted a change. "Give me 
the text." The boy was ready with one. "The 
points of the sermon." The boy started in invent- 
ing sermonic material. "Elijah, stop right there. 
Now I know you are lying. No Methodist preacher 
ever talked like that. That' s Calvinism. You never 
went to that church." 

Before Elijah was thirteen the call of the sea cast 
its spell upon him and he became a sailor for sev- 
eral years, knocking about the world on the wings 
of the wind. After returning from his buffetings 
with old ocean, where he had learned stern lessons 
of obedience and industry, he was indentured to a 
farmer and became proficient in the use of the hoe, 
the scythe, the ax, and the plow. 

It was then that the stirrings of a new life were 
felt within him and he longed for an education. 
This was good news to his father and there was a 

[133] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



day of rejoicing in the home when young Elijah en- 
tered Gorhani Academy. This was one of the turn- 
ing points in his life, the awakening within him to 
a consciousness of his intellectual powers. Shortly 
after entering the academy he asked himself this 
question, "Is a life of mere scholarship the highest 
and best of which I am capable ? " Then began a 
period of inner struggle in which young Kellogg 
began to realize that it was not enough for him to 
possess mental powers sharpened to a keen edge, as 
he used to sharpen his ax and his scythe. He saw 
that intellectual power should have a great objec- 
tive, should be consecrated to a noble cause. 

The second turning point in his life was when he 
made the choice of Christ as his life companion. 
Immediately he began to inquire how he could 
exercise his spiritual life. He started a Sunday 
school several miles from Gorham, in a locality 
given over to debauchery and vice of various forms. 
Elijah became convinced that this was the place 
where God's grace was needed more than any other 
in the countryside. He looked about for some one 
to help him establish the school, appealing to his 
friend, George L. Prentice, who became afterwards 
an honored professor in Union Theological Seminary, 
New York. Prentice answered: u No, Elijah, I do 
not care to go down there. They will kill us if we 
do." After a moment's thought he added : " I will 
tell you what I'll do. If you go down there and 
start a Sunday school and don't get killed, I will 
come in later and help you." 

Young Elijah made up his mind he would go 
[134] 



ELIJAH KELLOGG 



down alone and so he did. He gathered the vicious 
element into the school and through his efforts the 
entire community was transformed. To-day the 
community is intelligent, God-fearing, and Sabbath- 
keeping because of the efforts of Elijah Kellogg 
three quarters of a century ago. 

When young Kellogg came to college at twenty- 
four years of age, in the fall of 1836, there were no 
rational outlets for youthful spirits ; no gymnasiums 
or athletic fields helped students to work off their 
superabundant physical and nervous energy. Col- 
lege pranks, in which the student was always sup- 
posed to outwit the authorities of the institution and 
"get a laugh " on president or professor, were the 
accepted mode. 

Elijah Kellogg was an adept in the invention of 
practical jokes and various forms of mischief. Be- 
cause of his native sense of humor and his irresist- 
ible love of fun, in addition to his spirit of adven- 
ture and his high courage, he was constantly 
tempted to break the stern college discipline and 
lead students into various questionable exploits 
which were calculated to relieve the grind of the 
classroom. One incident is historic. The presi- 
dent of the college was a man of severe dignity and 
wore a silk hat as an emblem of his high position. 
Certain students made way with it and great was 
the glee of the boys as the president was compelled 
to walk across the campus bareheaded. Kellogg, 
although he was not in the original plot, offered to 
put the hat upon the chapel spire. In the darkness 
of night, accustomed as he was to the insecure foot- 

[135] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



ing of masts and yards, he climbed up the swinging 
lightning rod along the high spire, and placed the 
president's hat on the very summit where it greeted 
the morning sun and received the hilarious salutes 
of the students. 

But beneath his light-hearted behavior and mis- 
chievous inclinations was a brave and generous 
heart with a burning hatred of everything false and 
mean, and a desire to make the most of every high 
and noble thought or act. 

He was intensely loyal to his friends and enjoyed 
the fellowship of his comrades. One who knew him 
well speaks of him as being " universally popular, 
but he had his own chosen favorites, and one char- 
acteristic of him was his strong personal affection 
for them. His soul burned with love to those 
whom he loved. This was one secret of his power 
for good." 

Much of young Kellogg's time had to be spent in 
manual labor and he tells of the various ways in 
which he managed to meet his expenses. Much of his 
living he derived from work on neighboring farms, 
but this did not prevent his taking a deep interest 
in the literary activities of the college. Kellogg 
entered into the rivalry between the two literary 
societies, and added not a little to the reputation of 
the Peucinean Society, where "a poem by Kellogg 
was a very rare treat." The Bowdoin Portfolio, a 
literary magazine, received his contributions which 
were always in rime. His passion for the sea is 
evidenced in some of these, as in the following 
lines : 

[136] 



ELIJAH KELLOGG 



O'er the thundering chime of the breaking surge, 
On the lightning's wing my pathway urge, 
On thrones of foam right joyous ride, 
'Mid the sullen dash of the angry tide. 

Elijah Kellogg 7 s biographer, Professor Wil mot B. 
Mitchell, of Bowdoin, says : " So passed his college 
days, in the keen enjoyment of generous comrade- 
ship, in the instinctive indulgence of his fondness 
for fun and frolic, in the cheerful acceptance of the 
burden of defraying his own expenses, in manly 
fidelity to the appointed studies of the course, and 
in the voluntary and congenial exercise of the 
literary gifts with which he was endowed. 7 ' 

During college Kellogg gathered much material 
for his stories and dramatic recitations. What 
schoolboy is not familiar with the thrilling sentences 
in his " Spartacus to the Gladiators " : " Ye call me 
chief, and ye do well to call him chief who, for 
twelve long years, has met upon the arena every 
shape of man or beast that the broad Empire of 
Eome could furnish, and has never yet lowered his 
arm. . . . O Eome ! Eome ! thou hast been a 
tender nurse to me ! . . . O comrades ! warriors ! 
Thracians ! If we must die, let us die under the 
open sky ! " 

This and other recitations, such as the less famil- 
iar "Eegulus, 7 ' "Hannibal," " Pericles, 7 7 " Leou- 
idas " and " Virginius, 77 were written after Mr. Kel- 
logg had left college and was attending Andover 
Theological Seminary. The students at Andover 
still point out No. 20 Bartlett Hall as the room where 
Kellogg wrote his famous "Spartacus." 

[137] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



We must pass over the long years of his pastorate 
of the old Harps well Church, in a seaboard town of 
Maine only a few miles distant from the college, 
where some of the best work of his life was done. 
One trait, however, must be noted : his great love 
for boys. He was constantly selecting boys care- 
fully and sending them to Master Swallow's school in 
Brunswick to fit them for college. Always he was 
seeking their companionship and talking to them of 
his own boyhood and college days. Many a time he 
would gather a company of boys about him and tell 
them of his life as a sailor. He liked to tell how 
the frogs used to croak "K'logg, K'logg," summon- 
ing him from his studies, and also of the time when 
in class he solemnly assured his professor that Poly- 
carp was one of the many daughters of Mr. Carp. 
One of his stories was that he used to sail the waters 
of Back Cove, Portland, in a sugar box, taking off 
his shirt to make a sail. 

He won boys by entering into their fun and work, 
swimming, sailing, farming, and fishing with the 
young, fellows of his own parish, in order that, at 
the proper time, he might kneel with them in the 
boat, or by the side of a haycock in the field, for 
committal of their lives to God. The broken-legged 
boy on the small schooner rescued by Mr. Kellogg, 
grew up to be a man, and years after in his pros- 
perity, came to church and left a fifty-dollar bill in 
the hands of the astonished little preacher. 

For years Bowdoin College used to send to Pastor 
Kellogg certain students who, in the quaint parlance 
of the day, had to be " rusticated." College boys 

[138] 



ELIJAH KELLOGG 



of this day would call it "busted out." Many a 
boy got his first glimpse of real life and his first 
serious realization of responsibility from these 
sequestered days in Mr. Kellogg's home. One day 
a particularly rebellious boy, angry and resentful 
from the discipline of the college and the stern re- 
buke of his father, was sent to him. Within a week 
or two the lad had been transformed into a tender 
and repentant attitude. Some years before Mr. 
Kellogg's death, the vice president of a large west- 
ern railroad journeyed many miles to look into the 
kindly face of his boyhood friend and to tell him 
that those weeks of rare fellowship marked the 
turning point in his career. 

In 1854 Mr. Kellogg accepted the invitation of 
the Boston Seaman's Friend Society to become pas- 
tor of the Mariners' Church and chaplain of the 
Sailors' Home, where he accomplished a great work 
for the men who "go down to the sea in ships." 
Seven hundred and twenty-five sailors confessed 
Christ during Mr. Kellogg's ministry of eleven 
years, and many hundreds of unrecorded lives were 
redeemed from ways of sin. 

Some years before he left the Mariners' Church, 
Mr. Kellogg began writing stories for boys. His 
first story was "Good Old Times" which became 
popular with young people in the later sixties. 
Following this came others : the Elm Island stories, 
the Forest Glen, the Pleasant Cove, and the Whis- 
pering Pine series, until there were twenty-nine in 
all. These books were written with the avowed 
purpose of creating in boys manly and generous 

[ 139*] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



qualities, giving them a sense of sturdiness, courage, 
and straightforward dealing. Always there was the 
Christian atmosphere to reckon with. We read that 
u so imbued was the author with this purpose that 
he wrote his books, as he expressed it, * while upon 
his knees. J V 

He emphasized constantly the value of hardship, 
speaking of it as "a wholesome stimulant to strong 
natures, quickening slumbering energies, compel- 
ling effort, and by its salutary discipline reducing 
refractory elements." He advised picking out 
tough chunks to split and striking " right in the 
middle of the knot." He believed that a boy should 
learn to work with his hands as well as with his 
wits, and that endurance, pluck, integrity, and self- 
sacrifice were indispensable character- building ele- 
ments. 

Elijah Kellogg was more to Bowdoin after his 
graduation than during his actual college days. 
He spent much time at the college, feeling that his 
visits to his Alma Mater could be considered as truly 
pastoral as any of his work at Harpswell or Boston. 
Says Mr. Mitchell : u It did not take long for the 
news to spread that Elijah Kellogg was in college ; 
and then the hospitable room would be visited by 
many callers, eager to greet the shy, weather-beaten 
little man, whose heart was always warm for boys, 
and even the mazy wrinkles of whose face seemed 
to speak less of age than of kindness. And by the 
evening lamp an interested circle of students forgot 
the morrow's lessons as they listened to stories of 
olden time, and to quaint words of counsel and com- 

[140] 



ELIJAH KELLOGG 



nient as they fell from the visitor's lips. When the 
circle finally dissolved, and Mr. Kellogg and his 
entertainers were left alone, a psalm, which seemed 
somehow to gain new meaning from his reading of 
it, and a simple earnest prayer, brought the long 
evening to a fitting and memorable close. w 

When the one hundredth anniversary of the col- 
lege was celebrated in 1894, one thousand graduates 
sat down to the banquet in a great tent set up on 
the campus. When Elijah Kellogg was called upon 
to respond to a toast, every graduate sprang to his 
feet, cheering wildly for Bowdoin's Grand Old Man. 
They tell us that "the flush of troubled happiness 
that flitted across his bronzed and wrinkled face 
was something long to be remembered, as was also 
his glowing tribute of affection for the college." 

Many a student standing there and cheering for 
Mr. Kellogg remembered the old man's visit to his 
room, where, after the stories, the jokes, and the 
reminiscences of college life in earlier days, there 
would be an appropriate reference to the deeper 
things of life and a prayer in the closing moments 
of the visit. If these informal calls were prolonged 
far into the night, the boys would find a bed in the 
dormitory for the man they called " the good genius 
of the college." For many years the real dean and 
disciplinary force of Bowdoin was Elijah Kellogg, 
"demonstrator of applied common sense" to col- 
lege problems. 

Elijah Kellogg died in harness March 19, 1901, 
in the eighty-ninth year of his age. "I thank 
God," he said in his last prayer, "for a Christian 

[141] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



mother who consecrated me to Christ and the Chris- 
tian ministry. 77 With a little sigh he exclaimed, 
" I am so thankful," and thus died the best friend 
Bowdoin College ever knew. The members of the 
Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, to which he belonged, 
formed the choir at his funeral. 

In one of his sermons to Bowdoin students in 
1889, he described the beauty of autumn and said : 
" But a brighter glory illumines the autumn of life 
that has been spent with God and for God. What 
language shall describe, what figures worthily set 
forth, the maturity of a soul that in these days of 
secular knowledge and gospel privilege has gath- 
ered to itself all that God has taught. . . . Per- 
mit one united to you by the college tie to which 
time only adds intensity and depth, who has trav- 
eled over the path your feet are now pressing, who 
has reached that period of life when the tissue of 
the dream robe has fallen, to inquire if you are lay- 
ing the foundations for such a maturity as has been 
described. You are living in a day that affords 
opportunity and likewise compels responsibility. 
. . . May you resemble trees planted by living 
waters.' 7 

It would be a great inspiration if every college in 
the land could point to some Elijah Kellogg. Bow- 
doin College cannot measure the value of this man. 
It is not buildings and endowment that make a col- 
lege. Elijah Kellogg is Bowdoin. "Get the man 
and all is got. 77 



[142] 



XII 

David Yonan, of Davidson 

Greater Love Hath No Man Than This " 



Measure thy life by loss instead of gain ; 
Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth ; 
For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice ; 
And who suffers most hath most to give. 

— King. 



XII 

DAVID YONAN, OF DAVIDSON 

" Greater Love Math No Man Than This " 

The campus life of Davidson, the great Presby- 
terian college of North Carolina, is of such a high 
order that a man of noble ideals does not stand out 
against the background of Davidson as prominently 
as he would stand out in some institutions. Never- 
theless the record of the brilliant young Persian no- 
bleman, David Yonan, whose sudden death resulted 
from an unsuccessful attempt to rescue a fellow 
student from drowning, is regarded by the men of 
Davidson as the clearest example of the heroic life 
as understood and practiced there. 

David Yonan was born in Urumia, Persia, in 
1880. His father was a member of the nobility 
and a governor of three towns, two of them Mo- 
hammedan and the third Christian. Leaving the 
Nestorian Church, the ancient Christian communion 
in Asia, Governor Yonan entered the Presbyterian 
Church and became an ardent supporter of all its 
mission work. Yonan' s forefathers were originally 
Moslems but embraced Christianity, thereby losing 
greatly in prestige among the Moslem court circles. 
In time the financial standing of the family was also 
lost and when young David, after a preparatory 
course in the mission school at Urumia, wished to 

[145] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



come to America for a college education, his parents 
were not able to support him in his desire, and, for 
other reasons, did not approve of the plan. 

But about this time the boy fell ill with a pro- 
tracted fever and during his illness his thoughts 
were directed toward the work of medical missions. 
His distinguished uncle, Dr. Isaac Yonan, had re- 
ceived an American education and influenced David 
to think of America as the place where his powers 
might best be developed. 

In course of time Yonan, armed with letters of 
introduction from his uncle, landed in this country 
and applied for entrance to Pautops Academy, Vir- 
ginia. For several years he struggled manfully to 
master the English language and to support himself. 
His record in the academy reflected honor upon the 
institution and the student alike. He applied him- 
self to his studies with great intensity of purpose, 
and, possessing a genial and hearty nature, won for 
himself scores of friends who gave him every en- 
couragement. At Pantops he took highest rank in 
his studies although handicapped by the language. 
He used to tell how he was compelled to translate 
each sentence in English back into Persian and then 
retranslate it into English before a recitation. 

In the fall of 1896 he entered Davidson College 
where he was introduced into the hospitable home 
of Dr. William J. Martin, a professor of chemistry 
who later became president of the institution. Im- 
mediately a warm friendship sprang up between the 
professor and the young foreigner. 

Yonan, who was two or three years older than the 

[146] 



DAVID YONAN 



average college student, was able to assume a posi- 
tion of leadership. His roommate describes his win- 
ning manner and noble bearing in these words : 
" He had a peculiarly erect and impressive car- 
riage. His face was strong and kind. His eyes 
were his most eloquent feature. They were soft and 
gentle in repose, but lighted up at times with humor 
or flashed fire with strong emotion. w In the first 
two years David had won for himself a unique place 
in the hearts of students and faculty alike. Al- 
though throughout his course he was handicapped 
by poverty, being compelled to earn every penny of 
expenditure, he was able to rise above this limita- 
tion and to mingle ardently in all the college activi- 
ties. He soon developed into a typical representa- 
tive of his college, taking a prominent part in 
athletic, literary, and social activities both within 
and without the college walls. 

One describes him as "one of the most innately 
noble men I have ever met." He possessed an un- 
limited capacity for strong, pure friendships, and 
those who were admitted to the inner circle of his 
heart realized how great and unselfish were its im- 
pulses. He was clean in mind and it was said of 
him that he had never been known to use an oath, 
tell a vulgar story, or speak an indecent word. 
Every day he read his Persian Bible and spent 
much time in prayer. 

The lightness and gayety of American college 
men were not his by heredity or temperament. 
Like many Orientals he had a certain wistful air 
and, while genial, was never frivolous or light- 

[147] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



hearted. One always received the impression that 
this foreigner, while at peace with the world and 
possessed of an inner joy, carried the burden of the 
world's sin and was always thinking of the deep 
things of life. His classmates were under the im- 
pression that he found the separation from his 
family and friends in Persia much harder to bear 
than he would admit. 

But it must not be supposed that Yonan was in 
any sense a "kill- joy." He was interested in all 
manly sport and was delighted when in his sopho- 
more year intercollegiate football was permitted at 
Davidson for the first time in its history. The Per- 
sian immediately went out day after day in the 
" scrub " lines and succeeded at length in making 
the team. He acquired great proficiency in an in- 
credibly short time and was given the position of 
tackle on the varsity team. He played for three 
years, and football experts who studied his game de- 
clared that he was probably the strongest tackle in 
the South and, with proper coaching, would have 
won national fame on a big team. 

Eev. W. M. Walsh, an alumnus of Davidson, 
now a pastor at Sherman, Texas, writes : " He was 
the terror of his opponents, always just a little bet- 
ter than his man, not only because he was so strong 
but by reason of his alertness and catlike quickness. 
On the college team he played right half back. I 
played full back, and shall never forget the safe feel- 
ing I had when I started with the ball through the 
line following ' Sally, 7 as we called him. It nearly 
always meant a good game because he would make 

[148] 



DAVID YONAN 



a hole if there was none there already. I often felt 
that the cheers from the side lines should be for him 
aud not for the man carrying the ball. I feel sure, 
however, that he did not covet honors given to other 
players." 

At that time wrestling had not been introduced 
into the athletics of Davidson to any extent, but 
Yonan had no match in this particular sport, hav- 
ing brought with him from Persia certain remark- 
able tricks on the order of jujutsu. " I recall dis- 
tinctly," says Mr. Walsh, "how, on one occasion, 
soon after the beginning of the senior year, a certain 
boastful but good-natured freshman dared Yonan to 
a wrestling bout. The Persian played with him for 
a short time then feigned a fall backward and, 
quick as a flash, hurled the astonished freshman 
over his shoulder, landing him on the ground flat as 
a flounder, much to the amusement of the by- 
standers. " 

Throughout the four years of his course David 
Yonan made high grades constantly and won honors 
at the end. In the spring of 1900 he received 
the degree of A. B. He determined to remain in the 
vicinity of Davidson that summer and to enter the 
medical school of the college in the fall. Later he 
was to return to Persia as a medical missionary 
under the care of the Board of Foreign Missions of 
the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. 

During the summer Yonan who was working in 
the neighborhood of the college was invited to at- 
tend a picnic given by the Presbyterian Church of 
the town of Davidson on the banks of the beautiful 

[149] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



Catawba Eiver. He entered into the many sports 
offered and joined a bathing party in the afternoon. 
He had never learned to swim and was standing on 
the opposite bank from the large group of bathers, 
talking with Eev. A. T. Graham. Suddenly a call 
for help was heard and a medical student by the 
name of Fred Hobbs was seen struggling in the 
water. Yonan immediately sprang to the rescue. 
His companion shouted to him not to go into deep 
water, but the latter called back, " Oh, Mr. Graham, 
I must save Fred life, ? ' leaving off the possessive 
of the boy's name according to his oriental idiom. 
Heedless of his danger, and responding automat- 
ically to the cry of need, Yonan dashed into water 
thirty feet deep and went down like a log, sinking 
after a brief struggle without a cry. The president 
of the institution, Dr. Henry Lewis Smith, who 
had started on his homeward way, heard the shout- 
ing and running back threw off his clothes and 
dived repeatedly into the deep water, but his ut- 
most efforts were unavailing. The bodies of the 
two students were subsequently recovered and 
everything possible was attempted to resuscitate 
them, but in vairu 

" Thus went out suddenly," writes Dr. Eeed 
Smith, classmate and roommate of Yonan, u a life 
full to the utmost of promise for future service and 
usefulness. To human eyes it seems strange indeed 
that a career of such large possibilities for good 
should be ended just at the time when it was ready 
to bear fruit. The example that he left, however, 
has been an inspiration to all who knew him. The 

[150] 



DAVID YONAN 



influence of a strong soul upon others, though in- 
tangible and invisible, is both powerful and im- 
mortal. Many of Yonan's friends and fellow 
students are to-day leading lives that are higher and 
nobler because of the heroism and self-sacrifice of 
one who came to a foreign land to fit himself for 
service, and there, in the flower of his youthful 
vigor, laid down his life at the call of what he nobly 
esteemed his duty." 

In spite of the tragedy, the men of Davidson now 
have an added pride in their institution, for there 
lived beneath its shadow for a time one of those 
heroes whose shining deed no Carnegie medal can 
ever hope to make the brighter. Davidson College 
makes a better output of leadership now because 
David Yonan lived and died. 



[151] 



XIII 

Horace William Rose, of Beloit 

Winner of Men to Christ 



Who loved God and truth above all things. 

A man of untarnished honor, 

Loyal and chivalrous, gentle and strong, 

Modest and humble, tender and true, 

Pitiful to the weak, yearning after the erring, 

Stern to all forms of wrong and oppression, 

Yet most stern toward himself ; 

Who being angry yet sinned not, 

Whose highest virtues were known only 

To his wife, his children, his servants, and the poor, 

Who lived in the presence of God here, 

And passing through the grave and gate of death 

Now liveth unto God forevermore. 

— Dedication of the Life of Charles Kingsley, by his wife. 



XIII 

HORACE WILLIAM ROSE, OF BELOIT 

Winner of Men to Christ 

One of Horace Bose's favorite expressions was 
that this or that worker might " burn a path of 
light through the colleges." If ever a man burned 
a path of light through the colleges of the Middle 
West it was "Holly" Bose, graduate of Beloit in 
the class of 1896. 

During the year of his service with the Inter- 
national Committee of the Young Men's Christian 
Association, eighty colleges were visited, in sixty of 
which men were converted during his stay. In that 
one year he won over four hundred students to 
Christ. Through his instrumentality over a score 
of men were led to give their lives to foreign mis- 
sions and a larger number to enter other forms of 
Christian service. As a result of his efforts over 
six hundred men were brought into Bible classes 
and literally thousands were personally interviewed. 

And all this service in his brief life of twenty- 
seven years ! David Brainerd and Henry Martyn 
lived five years longer, Samuel Mills lived eight 
years longer. Jesus Christ was only a little older 
when his earthly life was finished. At the memo- 
rial service held for Bose at the Lake Geneva 

[ 155 ] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



Summer Conference in 1901, it was said that " he 
lived a finished life." 

Although Horace Eose served for only one year 
under the International Committee, he had given 
eight years of active service to the college field of 
the Young Men's Christian Association and he suc- 
ceeded in influencing an entire generation of North 
American college students. 

Horace William Eose was a native of Eockford, 
Illinois, and was born in 1874. His father, Eev. 
William Wilberforce Eose, was a Congregational 
minister of marked ability. The home life of the 
Eose family was ideal. The four sons and their 
parents were like brothers and sister. Horace had 
the deepest reverence for his father, whose nobility 
of character had a marked influence upon him from 
earliest boyhood. 

Nothing remarkable can be said of Horace's 
early years. He loved his home, spending much 
time in the family circle. His evenings were given 
to the life of the home. He was a great fun maker 
and joined in all the sports of the community. He 
developed splendid physical prowess and was at 
home on the diamond and the gridiron. A brother 
writes: u The boys liked to hear Holly's merry, 
loud laugh and wanted him on their side in the 
different contests. He had a great desire for win- 
ning and would strive the utmost to win but never 
did so unless fairly.' ' 

Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin, opened its 
doors to Horace in the fall of 1892. He at once 
entered into all the activities of the college but did 

[156] 



HORACE WILLIAM ROSE 



not take high rank in his studies, deliberately 
choosing an intermediate course between the 
"grinds" and the "sports." As his biographer, 
Harry Wade Hicks, says: "He realized that 
never again would he be placed in an environment 
where his Christian influence would count for so 
much as in college. Therefore he regulated his 
program with Christian work accorded a prominent 
place in his daily schedule. " He did, however, 
qualify for a master's degree, entering enthusiastic- 
ally into graduate studies as his time permitted. 

His father was very proud of his progress in col- 
lege and wrote to a friend in November, 1891, as 
follows : " Holly is doing finely at Beloit. He is a 
big fellow, very forceful and independent, very 
conscientious. He is in his work with all his heart 
and seems to be making an excellent beginning. 
He seems to be a popular fellow with the boys. n 
In another letter he remarked, "It is rather notice- 
able how that boy makes everything go." 

Eose took a place of leadership in Beloit at the 
very start. In 1892 and 1893 he was made vice 
president of his class and in 1895 he was elected 
president. At that time he acted as business man- 
ager of the college paper, and, in addition to his 
journalistic work, entered oratorical contests and 
secured first place in the interstate contest, with the 
colleges of ten states competing for the prizes. 

In athletics, also, Horace took a leading part. 
He was a member of the college baseball team for 
two years and developed into one of the best catch- 
ers in the Middle West. Afterwards, at summer 

[ 157 ] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



conferences and other gatherings of college men, he 
was elected captain and general manager and or- 
ganized winning teams. In his sophomore year he 
made the varsity football team. While serving as 
Association secretary at Iowa and Michigan, he con- 
tinued to play the game. 

But it was as a religious leader that Eose took 
commanding place at Beloit between the years 1892 
and 1906. During his senior year he was made 
president of the Association. " Many a man, " says 
a classmate, " may date the beginning of his Chris- 
tian life to the earnest appeal of Horace Eose made 
to him in his room while he was a student of Beloit. 
It was not an uncommon thing on the day of an im- 
portant Association prayer meeting for him to go 
through the dormitory and invite personally every 
one of the sixty or seventy men in the hall to attend 
the meeting, and frequently he had interviews with 
a dozen or more men in a single day regarding the 
duty of deciding for Christ." 

The moral and religious atmosphere of the college 
fraternity is often dominated by one or two men of 
strong personality. No dogmatic statement can be 
made as to the value of fraternities without taking 
into account the men who direct their ideals from 
time to time. The same fraternity may be entirely 
different in different college generations. Eose 
realized this and accepted the opportunity of mak- 
ing fraternity life at Beloit tell for the best. He 
therefore joined Beta Theta Pi and became a loyal 
Greek. He believed that men would respond to re- 
ligious appeals whether in or out of fraternities and 

[158] 






HORACE WILLIAM ROSE 



this belief brought him into constant contact with 
chapter houses in his visits to western colleges in 
later years. In many an institution fraternities 
were transformed through the influence of Eose. 
When he became secretary at the University of 
Michigan over a dozen houses agreed to organize 
Bible classes. This is illustrative of the way in 
which Eose used fraternity life in winning men to 
Christ. 

He realized, however, the danger of college ex- 
clusiveness and made special efforts to show that 
he was as much a friend of the man who was " out 
of things " as he was of his own fraternity brothers. 
Says a classmate, "Fear lest his fraternity con- 
nection might 'queer' him with the rest of the 
boys made him think more about them and give 
more attention to the unpopular, green, unsought 
and unknown ' preps' than he did to more popular 
men." Almost his first question, however, in vis- 
iting a college was, " What are the Beta boys doing 
for Jesus Christ?" 

During vacations Horace accepted work under 
the state Sunday-school association and traveled 
throughout Wisconsin organizing Sunday schools. 
A story is told of his applying at a farmhouse for 
a night's lodging. The farmer answered gruffly, 
" We don't want any Sunday school in these parts 
and you can't find children enough to make a Sun- 
day school, and you can't stay overnight." He 
persuaded the farmer's wife to give him a bowl of 
milk and bread and afterwards won the hearts of 
the entire family so that he was not only invited to 

[159] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



remain overnight but the children of the household 
were promised for the new Sunday school. 

During his junior and senior years Horace Eose 
preached regularly every Sunday to two different 
congregations, giving one the morning service and 
the other the evening service. He organized gospel 
teams and conducted evangelistic tours throughout 
the rural districts. On one occasion he remarked 
to one of his companions, "Bill, the thing that 
bothers me more than anything else is, are we giv- 
ing to the people the real gospel ? " 

Many a college man feels that he has no right to 
take a prominent part in the religious life of his 
college because of the glaring inconsistencies be- 
tween his public expression and his private life. 
Horace Eose had nothing like this to fear. With- 
out ostentation or sanctimony he pushed the claims 
of Christ fearlessly and made men feel a responsi- 
bility for upholding the moral and religious tone of 
the college. " He did," as one remarked, "one of 
the hardest things in the world ; to live a blameless 
life in every particular before his fellows." 

On graduating he was called to become general 
secretary of the Christian Association at the State 
University of Iowa. He had been thinking seri- 
ously of entering the gospel ministry, but on seek- 
ing advice of many friends, he turned toward the 
secretaryship of the Christian Association because 
he felt that this afforded him the best opportunities 
for the exercise of his special gifts. During the 
year which he spent at Iowa he had revolutionized 
the Association and " came nearer touching the life 

[160] 






HORACE WILLIAM ROSE 



of the student body than any man who has been 
general secretary before or since that time." He 
sang in the glee club and in one of the choirs and 
was manager of the track team. One who knew 
him well declared that had he remained he would 
have changed the Greek letter fraternities from their 
attitude of opposing the Association to that of thor- 
ough support and cooperation. 

The following year Eose became secretary of the 
newly organized Christian Association at the Uni- 
versity of Michigan, and here also remarkable re- 
sults were attained from the start. The Association 
was quickened in its spiritual life, its Bible study 
department was stimulated, mission study was de- 
veloped, personal workers' classes were organized, 
and many students were led into the Christian life 
as a result of the new spirit infused by this conse- 
crated worker. He developed his system of per- 
sonal work at Michigan, a system of grouping a few 
men for prayer and the study of God's Word. The 
administrative work t>f the Association did not seem 
to chill his spiritual life or cool his ardor for soul- 
winning. His rooms were constantly filled with 
men who wished to talk with him concerning per- 
sonal religious problems. A fellow secretary says : 
"One day, being very tired, he left word at the 
Association rooms that he would take a day off for 
rest. Soon his doorbell rang and one after another 
twenty-two men called. I asked him how he ac 
counted for this unusual occurrence. 'Oh,' he re- 
plied, 'the fellows know that I am interested in 
them. I have called on all of them in their rooms 

[161] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



and opened up the subject. Now when they are in 
trouble they come to me.' He was the most con- 
stant personal worker I have ever known. . . . 
The next day I saw him in a secluded corner sing- 
ing a lively song and dancing a jig." 

During his first year at the University of Michi- 
gan he married. His wife was one who could enter 
most heartily into all his work, and, after his accept- 
ance of the position with the International Commit- 
tee, she accompanied him on many of his trips to 
the colleges. 

He had attracted the attention of the leaders in 
Association work as one of the most brilliant and 
powerful secretaries, and was asked to take the sec- 
retaryship of the colleges in the Middle West. Eose 
was a humble man and the opportunity came almost 
as a shock. In a letter to a friend he said: "The 
International Committee must be hard up for men. 
It is a big comedown from Michener to common 
clay like me." 

From September, 1899, until his death in January, 
1901, he did one of the most notable pieces of work 
in Association history. It is impossible here to fol- 
low his course through the colleges and universities 
of the Middle West. But it is helpful to glance at 
the list of institutions and a few of his comments 
upon his work. 

At the University of Kansas he u got several men 
to make a scientific fight to overcome." At the 
University of Illinois, " We had a marked blessing, 
six or seven men owning Christ as Saviour and 
Lord for the first time. " At the Agricultural Col- 

[162] 



HORACE WILLIAM ROSE 



lege, Michigan, u Helped to clean out some lives.' ' 
At bis own Alma Mater, " Stirred up a hornets' 
nest in one of the fraternities, which is having the 
effect of cleaning things out." At the University 
of Wisconsin, " Two men accepted Christ and nearly 
fifty enlisted for Bible study." At the University 
of Missouri : " Have just come from the local chap- 
ter of our fraternity. Good fellows, but without 
much care for the will of God concerning their 
lives." At the Agricultural College, Ames, Iowa: 
11 Fourteen men accepted Christ, many men dropped 
something from their life and still others began to 
light. During Monday three men accepted Christ." 
At Grinnell College: "Two more men accepted 
Christ. I was flooded with interviews. O for the 
mind of Christ ! How his loving heart must long 
for these fellows who have been fighting losing bat- 
tles ! O for the energy of Paul, the fearlessness of 
Isaiah, and the love of John ! " 

At the Agricultural College, Brooking, South 
Dakota, where ten men accepted Christ, he w r rote, 
" I always hate to report numbers for it gives me a 
sense of satisfaction which I wish was not in my 
life.' ' At the University of South Dakota : " Seven 
conversions. Hope they will stick. Some were 
football men. It was a manifestation of divine 
power." At Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois: 
"The members of Beta fraternity have knocked 
down old traditions and come up higher. Lack of 
concern for fellow students is a great hindrance." 
From Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, he 
wrote, "O for power to burn a path of light in 

[163] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



these colleges for Christ ! " At the University of 
Indiana, Bloomington, Indiana: "Perhaps ten or 
twelve were converted. These men were anchored 
in personal work after the meeting. " At a certain 
college he was invited to stay in rooms occupied by 
students but was offended by certain indecent pic- 
tures and quietly said that they would have to come 
down if he was to stay there. The students asserted 
that Eose would "have to take them down first. " 
The verbatim account follows : 

"At college Eose was a famous wrestler. He 
immediately accepted their challenge, and one at a 
time threw the four men in succession, although 
two of them were much larger men. After the 
wrestling bout, he saw a baseball on the table and 
said, * Do you men play ball ? 7 And they replied, 
' Yes, a little. 7 Eose said, <I used to do some of it 
myself. Come out in the yard and I will play burn 
with you. ? And the old varsity catcher used his 
strong arm for the glory of God, and soon retired 
the group with puffed hands. When they came 
back into the house, Eose said, ' Now you can see 
that you are not the whole thing, what do you say 
about those pictures?' Without any other words, 
the men took the offensive decorations down, and 
before the convention closed they were led into the 
Kingdom." 

At the end of the school year he decided to accept 
the call of the Cornell Association largely on account 
of the illness of his wife to whom the long separa- 
tions were exceedingly prejudicial. "It pulls my 
heartstrings," he wrote, "to have to leave this 

[164] 



HORACE WILLIAM ROSE 



traveling work. It is full of so many opportuni- 
ties. " In July he attended the Northfield Student 
Conference which appears to have been a time of 
great soul-searching and illumination. He wrote : 
"The Northfield Conference is almost over. God 
has spoken here. I have been on the mount of 
vision, and I pledge God to be true to the vision. 
But perhaps two things more than others are stirring 
the very depths of my heart. I must win more 
souls. I must be instrumental in starting some re- 
vivals. With God's grace I will. The second is 
this : I have heard, as never before, the cry of the 
Indian student, of the students of Japan and China 
and Australia.'' 

Entering into the work at Cornell with his usual 
abandon he endeavored to secure an endorsement of 
his policies regarding evangelistic meetings, per- 
sonal work, Bible and mission study, and other ad- 
vance features, but met with considerable opposition. 
" The Executive Committee, 7 ' he wrote, "is opposed 
to evangelistic meetings, but we will win them yet. 
This is a sore disappointment to me for I thought 
they were anxious to have the evangelistic effort 
characterize their work." The heart of Horace 
Eose would have leaped had he been able to mingle 
in the great evangelistic meetings at Cornell in 
March, 1916. 

More and more he was driven to prayer and Bible 
study, withdrawing to the tower of Barnes Hall for 
his devotions. The former secretary found him 
late in the morning with his coat off and his note- 
book and Bible spread out on the bed. " I would 

[165] 



HEROES OF THE CAMPUS 



not think of entering the day here," said Eose, 
u without spending at least an hour over my Bible 
and with Christ in prayer. It is hard to keep sweet 
and yet do all that must be done." 

Bible study grew steadily and an enrollment of 
nearly two hundred was secured. A personal work- 
ers' class was also begun. Mr. Hicks says : u Aside 
from the administrative work of the Association his 
chief service was pastoral in character. The old 
custom of visiting men in their rooms had been re- 
sumed and already his notebook in which he entered 
dates for personal interviews was well filled with 
engagements." 

Then came the typhoid fever fastening itself inex- 
orably upon a system already run down. In spite 
of all that could be done, the fever developed until 
on Thursday, January 10, 1901, Horace Eose, aged 
twenty-six years, three months, and twenty-two 
days, entered the life immortal. 

Eose has been called ' ' Ambassador of Jesus Christ 
to the Court of the Individual Heart." His dis- 
tinction lies in the fact that he did the kind of work 
from which most men shrink, the personal approach 
in behalf of Christ. His prayer written at the close 
of a busy day in college is a fitting ending to this 
brief appreciation. 

" The day has gone. In the quiet of the evening 
hour sit a moment with thy better self and think. 
I began the day early with Him. Since then have 
passed fifteen golden hours. Each minute has been 
fraught with privilege and responsibility. Oh, 
what a day of privilege ! But now I pause as the 

[166] 



HORACE WILLIAM ROSE 



night comes on, and ask if what Moses and Aaron 
could say is true of this day just passing out of my 
grasp, 'The God of the Hebrews hath met us. ? In 
the busy ways, in the studies, in the laboratories, 
on the campus, in the closet, is it true ? Has the 
God of the Hebrews met me ? 

" Thou God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I sub- 
mit to thee this day, its successes and failures. Use 
both in thy glory. Give me forgiveness in Jesus 
Christ ; and while I sleep to-night, O may my heart 
be on the watch for new revelations of thee, and 
when the morning dawns and the night winds and 
dews are gone, O God of the Hebrews, meet me and 
keep me near thee throughout each hour. May 
this present minute be a Bethel for my soul, the 
place where I meet the God of the Hebrews ! " 



[167] 



Bibliography 



In addition to other sources of information the 
author is indebted to the following writers and their 
works in the preparation of this volume : 

" A Memorial of Horace Tracy Pitkin, " Speer. 

" Arthur Frame Jackson of Manchuria," Costain. 

" Thirty Years in the Manchu Capital," Christie. 

" A Memorial of a True Life, Hugh McAllister 
Beaver," Speer. 

"Life and Letters of Forbes Bobinson," by his 
brother. 

"William Whiting Borden," Zwemer. 

"Memorials of Ion Keith Falconer," Sinker. 

"Samuel J. Mills," Eichards. 

"Elijah Kellogg, The Mau and His Work," 
Mitchell. 

" Life of Horace William Eose," Hicks. 






[168] 



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